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React Native for Windows and Mac

microsoft.github.io

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Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#331

Post by nindalf »

pjmlp wrote: post #321
hombre_fatal wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an end user why do I care about "openness"? If I pay a premium for my platform, why would I want second rate cross platform software? Falsehoods HNers believe about how people buy/use software. Didn't stop Slack/Discord from become ubiquitous. "But native tho" just becomes a circlejerk. Talking about what users care about, most people don't know what native means nor if a given app is it. They don't know if Zoom…

I use Slack and other Electron based applications because my job requires it, imposed by our IT or customers, not because I freely have chosen to use them or have the liberty to look for alternatives. Other than VSCode for Rust and TypeScript, my own personal computer is as much Electron free as possible. So don't mistake market share for freedom of choice.

VSCode is a great example. We’ve already established that the average joe out there doesn’t care about whether an app is implemented in electron or not. But VSCode’s success at the expense of every other editor out there indicates that even developers don’t care that much.

The important thing is features - which VSCode has, and the speed at which those features are developed and deployed on all platforms - where VSCode is nearly peerless.

If developers cared about performance and resource consumption above all else, no one would be using VSCode right now (you included). They’d be using vim, emacs or perhaps Sublime. But that isn’t the case.

So why does HN keep flogging the “electron is bad” meme?

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#332

Post by pjmlp »

nindalf wrote: post #331
pjmlp wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Slack and other Electron based applications because my job requires it, imposed by our IT or customers, not because I freely have chosen to use them or have the liberty to look for alternatives. Other than VSCode for Rust and TypeScript, my own personal computer is as much Electron free as possible. So don't mistake market share for freedom of choice.

VSCode is a great example. We’ve already established that the average joe out there doesn’t care about whether an app is implemented in electron or not. But VSCode’s success at the expense of every other editor out there indicates that even developers don’t care that much. The important thing is features - which VSCode has, and the speed at which those features are developed and deployed on all platforms - where VSCo…

The day Microsoft releases Rust support for Visual Studio, VSCode gets kicked out of my PC.

Also, I wonder how much the Electron love overlapps with VSCode, after all many of those developers were pushing for Atom before VSCode was born.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#333

Post by krzat »

scarface74 wrote: post #329
krzat wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing the same thing multiple times is also sad. On desktops, it was understood long time ago.

Sad for who? Yes and a long time ago Sun came out with Swing. How did that work out? Even before that MS came out with P-Code and the abomination that was Word 6 for the Mac.

Sad for developers. What I had in mind regarding desktop were big tools like Blender, Photoshop, Blender, IntelliJ IDEs, which existed long before Electron.

I think it clearly shows that complex UI apps require cross platform UI, or will remain single platform (Xcode, Visual Studio).

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#334

Post by fingerlocks »

iainmerrick wrote: post #313
eyelidlessness wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It uses a combination of both JS and native code. That JS that RN calls ultimately makes calls out to native Andriod and iOS (and Windows, and macOS) APIs that are compiled to Java and ObjC/Swift (and, I assume, C#?). All of RN's targeted platforms leverage scripting bridges for JS, but only a portion of the actual running code is JS, the part that's native is (usually, but not exclusively) generalized.

It uses a combination of both JS and native code. That JS that RN calls ultimately makes calls out to native Andriod and iOS (and Windows, and macOS) APIs Exactly like a web browser. only a portion of the actual running code is JS “Only a portion” meaning your entire React application! The native parts are the RN framework, any native libraries you’re using, and any native code you’ve added yourself. What RN brings t…

> and any native code you’ve added yourself.

I think you undervalue just how important this bit is.

It’s so easy to bind your own native code to react-native, it’s quite the game changer for those of us that have been managing two (or more) native code bases for different platforms for the past decade.

I have successfully merged two separate projects for the same iOS/Android app into one by simply writing JS bindings for the existing native code and moving all the business logic to react-native. I probably deleted more LOC than I wrote, and it’s still 90% native code- this is a GPU intensive A/V app.

I’m not a web guy so I can’t compare it to vanilla web react, but for native app development RN has been a huge productivity boost.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#336

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

macinjosh wrote: post #164
scarface74 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this reason, I've been trying out Flutter or even considering to go back to native apps. This says so much about the sad state of modern software development... When native development is a last resort.

Why does it have to be sad? To me it is good news! Especially if it is open source. The more software we can write that isn’t specific to a platform the more free and useful software can become. It wrestles back control from google, apple, microsoft et. al and makes their closed platforms less relevant.

False dichotomy. Native applications can be cross-platform.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#337

Post by nostromocoding »

antihero wrote: post #154
Exuma wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the worst experience of my development life, building a phone app with it........................ never, never, never again. If you want to know what it's like to have everything break LITERALLY every few days, use react native.

How long ago was this? Been doing RN since .58 and not had any issues like this unless you pay zero attention and use random dead packages a lot.

Yep agreed! 0.62 works flawlessly and the integration of Flipper standard on every project has been nice

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#338

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

nindalf wrote: post #331
pjmlp wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Slack and other Electron based applications because my job requires it, imposed by our IT or customers, not because I freely have chosen to use them or have the liberty to look for alternatives. Other than VSCode for Rust and TypeScript, my own personal computer is as much Electron free as possible. So don't mistake market share for freedom of choice.

VSCode is a great example. We’ve already established that the average joe out there doesn’t care about whether an app is implemented in electron or not. But VSCode’s success at the expense of every other editor out there indicates that even developers don’t care that much. The important thing is features - which VSCode has, and the speed at which those features are developed and deployed on all platforms - where VSCo…

Because some things being good does not mean we shouldn't criticize the bad ones.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#339

Post by dep_b »

szhu wrote: post #18

I think the killer feature here is natively targeting Windows AND macOS simultaneously. The only cross-platform alternatives that I've seen in the ecosystem use either web or Gtk in the frontend, and both of these have a distinctly non-native feel to them.

I've been working with Xamarin / Mono and having a Cocoa front-end with a C# back-end is really the best of both worlds. Everything looks native, is snappy, uses relatively little memory and all of the not so immediately visible Good Stuff for macOS like accessibility, document state and AppleScript just works out of the box.

Most cross-platform solutions are awful in at least one of those three, usually all of them.

Re: React Native for Windows and Mac

#340

Post by nostromocoding »

diegof79 wrote: post #145
satvikpendem wrote: post #69

I tried using this a few months ago, as well as React Native for mobile and React Native Web for web, and I felt like they were all just hacks glued together to get cross-platform support, and RN isn't even native, it still includes a Javascript bridge. Build dependencies and packages were a nightmare, things continuously broke. I tried Flutter afterwards and it just felt like a breath of fresh air. Everything "just…

I had the same experience. Expo is wonderful for prototyping and quick iteration. The ability to use Snacks online and see them working on the phone is great. But beyond that everything in RN feels hacky and unfinished. While working with it I had some silly issues with Metro, and found some subtle bugs in Text and Button components. About the "Native" part. I think that a lot of people have the expectation that doin…

I had the opposite experience actually. Expo made it difficult to accomplish anything with their ever changing sdk and (what felt like) never ending version deprecations and I found sooner or later for any serious project one would inevitably need to eject.

As of RN 0.60 it has been completely smooth sailing developing a react native app sans expo IMO

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