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Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

discord.com

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Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#61

Post by mjevans »

zlsa wrote: post #45
mjevans wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still a _desperate_ need for a widely used common standard for GUI; I'd even be OK with that happening to be 'things are webpages' if they were OS native and would otherwise behave similarly to native apps on every platform. That HTML5 desktop or even Postscript would be nice; anything as long as it's a real standard already installed and kept up to date on 99% of potential user's systems.

> as long as it's a real standard already installed and kept up to date on 99% of potential user's systems. Unfortunately, by far the closest thing we have to this is Google Chrome.

I would, except it's not a 'native dialog'; it doesn't yield first class citizen UI interaction, it lives in a tab in the browser.

Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#64

Post by brundolf »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #51

Here's my experience with react native: - There were very little opportunities for sharing functionality between web and mobile. The standard react architecture is code-behind, and you can't share components between react and react native. - Time-consuming to update to new versions, especially on the IOS side of things. A constant avalanche of errors from the very convoluted cocoapods build system, with stack traces…

We've had a good experience (I've commented with more details elsewhere)

I will say, I don't think sharing code between web and mobile was ever supposed to be a key advantage. As you say, there may be some small opportunities for that, but the real benefits are a) sharing code between the two mobile platforms, and b) sharing skillsets between web and mobile

Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#65

Post by baisq »

jrsj wrote: post #13

I hate a lot of Electron and React Native based software, but Discord manages to avoid performance, stability, and quality issues that most seem to encounter. I don't know what they do or how they do it, but I think it's very impressive.

The desktop client is, to me, not as performant as it should be. Many actions take several hundred milliseconds when it's obvious that they could be much faster.

Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#66

Post by tazard »

nabakin wrote: post #58
volumetric wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used it a lot over the pandemic and random crashes and having to restart because it started using way too many system resources was extremely common. Nobody left it open when not in active use, because it was such a resource hog. Using it on battery would take a macbook from full to 0% in like two hours flat. This was with a couple very small private groups only, no use of large public channels or anything.

Strange, I've never had that happen and I've used discord for years. A good portion of that time was spent using it on my 2015 MacBook Pro.

I had lots of issues on my M1 Mac, mostly it was solved by running their beta version though. No issues on any other platforms

Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#67

Post by baisq »

tuetuopay wrote: post #26

If it reaches the performance of the already RN iOS app, then it’s a win. I’m still rocking an iPhone 6s, on which Discord is buttery-smooth. If only the Slack app could do the same…

Your iphone 6s is probably faster than the average android phone sold today.

Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#68

Post by jrsj »

generichuman wrote: post #42
jrsj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the desktop I don't think there's much value in it. Electron is much more compatible with the web, requires less platform specific work, and doesn't really come at a significant performance or UX cost.

Electron doesn't really come at a significant performance cost? I wonder why Rockstar or Bethesda don't just use electron for their games.

I meant relative to React Native, which isn't suitable for that either. There's plenty of areas where native makes the most sense on desktop.

Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#69

Post by bravetraveler »

jrsj wrote: post #13

I hate a lot of Electron and React Native based software, but Discord manages to avoid performance, stability, and quality issues that most seem to encounter. I don't know what they do or how they do it, but I think it's very impressive.

I have to assume it's partly because they never update Electron -- I've not been able to run it under Wayland for a few months now

Re: Discord Switching to React Native for Android App

#70

Post by vorpalhex »

willio58 wrote: post #16
vorpalhex wrote: post #4

Oh this makes me nervous. Discord on android is slow and bloated and occasionally memory leaky. I have a tasker routine to restart it nightly... If the app gets any laggier or slower I will probably have to abandon it...

Their reason for switching to react native is to address these issues

That is explicitly not their reason. They want platform parity, as they specify in the article.

Moving from native to react native will almost certainly be slower (unless something in their native app is just very broken).

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