6 ms·

So you're supposed to explain to your boss that the poor user experience is due to you picking something that was easier to develop with?

bmelton 11y ago
Exactly. Except, the time to do it is before you decide on a tool, when the company is comparing time to value vs. quality. Whether or not the experience is great isn't a deal-breaker, it's a factor in the decision making process. For plenty of companies out there, having a less-than-perfect application that they can deploy to many platforms in a month or two with a single or couple of developers is a choice that might get made, when the alternatives are either much longer timetables or many more dollars.
hrktb 11y ago
TBH this kind of solution is more often pushed by bosses than devs. Any management person will throw in a "you've done X on this platform, why don't you try to reuse most of your stuff on this other platform ?", just in case it's actually doable.
- bobwaycott 11y ago
  I feel bad for you if you've met such bosses. As one, and as someone who has worked under several, I've never once experienced a boss knowing or saying such things. I've only ever seen it come from developers. Edit: Just to clarify, there may be instances where a mgmt type has asked if X on platform Y can be reused on platform Z easily. I've never seen it go beyond the ask.
- gurkendoktor 11y ago
  In my experience as a mobile app freelancer, many prospective clients(=bosses) insist on portable/JavaScript frameworks for new projects. I guess it is because native iOS/Android programmers are expensive, and a single JavaScript programmer rotating between platforms with a shared codebase is both cheaper and easier to manage than two or more native app programmers (at least in theory).
kcole16 11y ago
React Native doesn't deliver a poor user experience though. It's not the right choice for every project, but in most cases users won't be able to discern between RN and native.
- Ambroos 11y ago
  On iOS maybe, but not on Android. You have to reimplement a lot of the things you get for free when developing native apps yourself. Most animations etc, you all have to add it yourself. Problem with that is that the React Native team has some decent iOS stuff, but for Android it's all sorely lacking. Besides Facebook's Ad Manager (which barely cuts it) I haven't seen any React Native app on Android that didn't feel horrible (and not like an Android app).
- briandear 11y ago
  Does the Facebook app use React "Native'? Because that app is a horrible power hog and vastly glitchy and buggy. That is a poor user experience compared to what a well written native iOS app could deliver. Users might not know its a poor experience because that can't compare to how fast and responsive the app would be if it were actually written in Swift. There are people in this world that think Olive Garden is great Italian food. There are people in this world that think React "Native' is a good user experience. Why does Facebook absolutely insist on avoiding writing actual native apps? As in Swift for example. It seems like they are almost allergic to actual native and instead focus on this inferior cross platform stuff. In 'most cases' users won't know the difference? sure they will; they'll notice that the app they're using sucks more than other apps on their phone. They'll tolerate the glichiness, the occasional blank data screen during a load because they care about the content more than the terrible experience. All because a developer or the CTO somehow thinks "it works well enough" is the same as "let's really give our users the best possible experience." I am amazed that Facebook has thousands of employees but can't be bothered to write a single line of code in Swift. They've been insisting on this stubborn course of action since the beginning of their mobile experience. Does Zuckerberg just hate Obj C or Swift? Why are they making the mobile experience into the lowest common denominator? Why does their Facebook app feel like some cheap PhoneGap experiment? My Facebook app on iOS performs exactly the same as it does on a years-old Android phone.. And that's ridiculous. I have superior hardware and yet I get to run an inferior app because JavaScript? It's like socialism for apps: make everyone equally miserable. The simple fact is this: I hate cross platform systems because they end up averaging the quantity of the mobile experience with capabilities being reduced to support the lowest common denominator. If I want my apps to run as terrible as many do on Android, I will use an Android. It's lazy development. It's a means for the JavaScript crowd to avoid leaning Swift (or Java) so they can provide middling to bad mobile apps rather than actually building the absolute highest quality product they could build. Even Facebook does it! I feel like the React Native ecosystem is doing more to reduce the quality of the mobile app experience than anything else. Apps are being turned into these average pieces of crap with only the UI being slightly different. Does anyone have any performance benchmarks on a React "Native" compared to Swift? Any data at all? Or are we just so excited to write apps in React that we fail to care? If we care about 'cross platform' development -- we can already do that; it's called 'the web.' Let stop foisting inferior mobile apps on people just because we can.
the_gipsy 11y ago
I've seen cordova/phonegap being used as a MVP. Then slowly some screens got rewritten in their native platforms, starting with the most critical ones. All by manager's and client's decision. It was a horrible experience overall.
coldtea 11y ago
You understand that in realistic professional scenarios it's rather the boss (especially a technical boss), that will dictate that it's ok to have something easier to develop with. Poor user experience doesn't mean much if you are not on the market soon enough. Which should be obvious on HN, and it's a point PG himself has iterated several times...
- OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
  There are a lot of devs on here with little to no real world experience or not enough to make sound judgements as far as I can tell anyway. I'm not sure if it's better to enlighten them or to ignore them since they are the sort of people that are willing to post their baseless opinions for the world to see.
- st3v3r 11y ago
  "Poor user experience doesn't mean much if you are not on the market soon enough." 90% of the time this doesn't apply. The "need it done last week" attitude is mostly undeserved.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    For enterprise projects, yes. For startups competing for eyeballs, it's quite important.
    - st3v3r 11y ago
      Again, I don't believe that. A month? Sure. A week? No.

bmelton 11y ago

Exactly. Except, the time to do it is before you decide on a tool, when the company is comparing time to value vs. quality. Whether or not the experience is great isn't a deal-breaker, it's a factor in the decision making process. For plenty of companies out there, having a less-than-perfect application that they can deploy to many platforms in a month or two with a single or couple of developers is a choice that might get made, when the alternatives are either much longer timetables or many more dollars.

hrktb 11y ago

TBH this kind of solution is more often pushed by bosses than devs. Any management person will throw in a "you've done X on this platform, why don't you try to reuse most of your stuff on this other platform ?", just in case it's actually doable.

bobwaycott 11y ago
I feel bad for you if you've met such bosses. As one, and as someone who has worked under several, I've never once experienced a boss knowing or saying such things. I've only ever seen it come from developers. Edit: Just to clarify, there may be instances where a mgmt type has asked if X on platform Y can be reused on platform Z easily. I've never seen it go beyond the ask.
gurkendoktor 11y ago
In my experience as a mobile app freelancer, many prospective clients(=bosses) insist on portable/JavaScript frameworks for new projects. I guess it is because native iOS/Android programmers are expensive, and a single JavaScript programmer rotating between platforms with a shared codebase is both cheaper and easier to manage than two or more native app programmers (at least in theory).

kcole16 11y ago

React Native doesn't deliver a poor user experience though. It's not the right choice for every project, but in most cases users won't be able to discern between RN and native.

Ambroos 11y ago
On iOS maybe, but not on Android. You have to reimplement a lot of the things you get for free when developing native apps yourself. Most animations etc, you all have to add it yourself. Problem with that is that the React Native team has some decent iOS stuff, but for Android it's all sorely lacking. Besides Facebook's Ad Manager (which barely cuts it) I haven't seen any React Native app on Android that didn't feel horrible (and not like an Android app).
briandear 11y ago
Does the Facebook app use React "Native'? Because that app is a horrible power hog and vastly glitchy and buggy. That is a poor user experience compared to what a well written native iOS app could deliver. Users might not know its a poor experience because that can't compare to how fast and responsive the app would be if it were actually written in Swift. There are people in this world that think Olive Garden is great Italian food. There are people in this world that think React "Native' is a good user experience. Why does Facebook absolutely insist on avoiding writing actual native apps? As in Swift for example. It seems like they are almost allergic to actual native and instead focus on this inferior cross platform stuff. In 'most cases' users won't know the difference? sure they will; they'll notice that the app they're using sucks more than other apps on their phone. They'll tolerate the glichiness, the occasional blank data screen during a load because they care about the content more than the terrible experience. All because a developer or the CTO somehow thinks "it works well enough" is the same as "let's really give our users the best possible experience." I am amazed that Facebook has thousands of employees but can't be bothered to write a single line of code in Swift. They've been insisting on this stubborn course of action since the beginning of their mobile experience. Does Zuckerberg just hate Obj C or Swift? Why are they making the mobile experience into the lowest common denominator? Why does their Facebook app feel like some cheap PhoneGap experiment? My Facebook app on iOS performs exactly the same as it does on a years-old Android phone.. And that's ridiculous. I have superior hardware and yet I get to run an inferior app because JavaScript? It's like socialism for apps: make everyone equally miserable. The simple fact is this: I hate cross platform systems because they end up averaging the quantity of the mobile experience with capabilities being reduced to support the lowest common denominator. If I want my apps to run as terrible as many do on Android, I will use an Android. It's lazy development. It's a means for the JavaScript crowd to avoid leaning Swift (or Java) so they can provide middling to bad mobile apps rather than actually building the absolute highest quality product they could build. Even Facebook does it! I feel like the React Native ecosystem is doing more to reduce the quality of the mobile app experience than anything else. Apps are being turned into these average pieces of crap with only the UI being slightly different. Does anyone have any performance benchmarks on a React "Native" compared to Swift? Any data at all? Or are we just so excited to write apps in React that we fail to care? If we care about 'cross platform' development -- we can already do that; it's called 'the web.' Let stop foisting inferior mobile apps on people just because we can.

the_gipsy 11y ago

I've seen cordova/phonegap being used as a MVP. Then slowly some screens got rewritten in their native platforms, starting with the most critical ones. All by manager's and client's decision. It was a horrible experience overall.

coldtea 11y ago

You understand that in realistic professional scenarios it's rather the boss (especially a technical boss), that will dictate that it's ok to have something easier to develop with. Poor user experience doesn't mean much if you are not on the market soon enough. Which should be obvious on HN, and it's a point PG himself has iterated several times...

OldSchoolJohnny 11y ago
There are a lot of devs on here with little to no real world experience or not enough to make sound judgements as far as I can tell anyway. I'm not sure if it's better to enlighten them or to ignore them since they are the sort of people that are willing to post their baseless opinions for the world to see.
st3v3r 11y ago
"Poor user experience doesn't mean much if you are not on the market soon enough." 90% of the time this doesn't apply. The "need it done last week" attitude is mostly undeserved.
- coldtea 11y ago
  For enterprise projects, yes. For startups competing for eyeballs, it's quite important.
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    Again, I don't believe that. A month? Sure. A week? No.