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The thing with frameworks like this is that the time invested could be lost if the framework looses traction. I am very hesitant to use a framework like this fo

The thing with frameworks like this is that the time invested could be lost if the framework looses traction. I am very hesitant to use a framework like this for anything serious and business-oriented.

RubenSandwich 9y ago
Exactly. I wonder if in the future we will more demand API stability of our host platforms so we aren't rewriting the same framework on every API change. I feel like I'm always building on sinking sand, that my programs have half-lives shorter then radioactive elements. Say what we want about Microsoft but they have always valued API stability.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Apple’s frameworks are relatively stable. Maybe we shouldn’t be building frameworks on top of frameworks on top of other languages? Maybe officially supported tools/languages are often a good choice.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Experience taught me that it is always the best option for production code.
- Fappy 9y ago
  I understand what you're getting at and agree with the sentiment. Knowing work on the .NET framework is going to be supported (see: not broken) for years to come is a big factor for deciding on a basket for your eggs. But aren't most radioactive elements notorious for having half-lives that are long with respect to the human lifespan? Just sayin'.
  - RubenSandwich 9y ago
    Yeah, the radioactive element comment is more statement on how our products are slowly decaying. But if I was to choose one with a half-life similar to the lifetime of the products I've worked on I'd go with the isotope: Sodium-22 with a half-life of 2.602 years. Edit: Going by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radioactive_isotopes_by_half-life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radioactive_isotopes_b..., it seems that most of the halflives fall in the 10^(n where n <= 6) seconds category which is smaller than a human lifetime.
cgomezmendez 9y ago
Yes, and there is not big company behind this one as far as I can see, Google's Flutter and Facebook's React Native will for sure have support from these companies cause they have projects written with their frameworks but this one, I'm hessitant.
- equasar 9y ago
  Right now I'm vouching for Flutter, I tried their golden prototype "Hamilton — The Official App" on a slow android device and it runs pretty smooth. Not sure about iOS tho.
pbreit 9y ago
This sentiment seems to be in the tiny minority.
- danpalmer 9y ago
  But it could be a major contributing factor to issues like the Javascript framework ecosystem changing every 6 months.
  - pbreit 9y ago
    That's my point.
TeeWEE 9y ago
Thats true, however in the long term, we need a react like framework that solves cross platform development. React Native has lots of problems with navigation, the AirBnB team even stopped using it seriously. I guess Kotlin and Kotlin Native (which runs on ios) could be a good started for building a KotlinReactNative, which allows creating an UI in a DSL based syntax that works on multiple platforms.
- pdnell 9y ago
  @TeeWEE, Do you have any info on why Airbnb stopped using React Native? Would love a good read on why.
  - gpeal 9y ago
    We have definitely not stopped using React Native! Not sure where you got that impression. We continue to heavily invest in it as well as native platforms and make a case by case decision for all new products.
  - hysan 9y ago
    Also interested in hearing if they really stopped using React Native as a whole. Especially since their react-native-maps library is the defacto library for maps. It would be quite scary if they decided to stop using React Native. Right now, the only thing I'm currently aware of is that their navigation library (native-navigation [1]) is pretty much unmaintained and they are trying to plan out a transition to move it under react-community.[2] The only thing that hints at their slowing use of React Navigation is the mention of conversion to React Native's navigation getting a much lower priority to the point that the native-navigation library has essentially become unmaintained.[3] But when I initially read that, it didn't come off as Airbnb deciding to stop using React Native. [1] https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation [2] https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145 https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145 [3] https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145#issuecomment-329384356 https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145#issue...
- danpalmer 9y ago
disconnected 9y ago
The biggest problem with these frameworks is that they ignore the elephant in the room. We already have a widely adopted, widely compatible, highly developed and open framework for cross platform development: webpages. My confidence that Mr. J. Random Hacker - or even J. Random Company Inc. - can do better than this - and support it for over 2 decades - is close to 0.
- yoz-y 9y ago
  If this framework focalizes on iOS and Android then it might be more useful than webpages in some cases. Native applications are still the way to go if you need to do computationally intensive tasks, UIs that are responsive (especially on Android), UIs that display real time data (especially on iOS) and anything that uses the cool features the phones have.
  - Zoon 9y ago
    Can you expand on why non-native iOS apps struggle with displaying real-time data, and why anroid’s struggle with responsiveness?
    - yoz-y 9y ago
      Sure. The current problem on iOS is that you can not replace the web-rendering engine, thus you have to send messages or call callbacks into the web engine api. You have no guarantees as to when they will be actually executed and you have to serialize your data. In my application I needed to display data incoming from a sensor. I can only access this data using the native functions and it comes at around 500Hz from 16 sensors. For comparison, in Electron, when you call a function defined in a module written in C++, you can get the answer in under 1 ms. When using something like Cordova, you have to serialize the data which can take a seriously long time and then you have to wait for the callback to execute. On Android I suppose it is quite possible to write a V8 native plugin and achieve this performance, but not on iOS where you are limited to included webkit. As for the Android responsiveness, the problem lies with the single threaded nature of JavaScript. CPUs on android phones _suck_ in single core performance. When I was looking for a good solution for multi platform development, I have found of a tech meeting that was supposed to present solutions taken by several different companies. It turned to be a huge complaint-fest about Android javascript performance and the only happy people were those using Xamarin (which is native). Edit: Note that I think that using web views for applications like banking or chat and so on is perfectly fine. My issue is with apps that eat a lot of incoming data and/or have to change what is displayed very often.
jd20 9y ago
Well, someone probably said the same about Go or React-Native when they first came out too. We have to start somewhere...
- biokoda 9y ago
  > Well, someone probably said the same about Go or React-Native when they first came out too RN came from a giant company that uses it in its core product. Big difference.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    As did Go - Google is as equally giant as Facebook and uses Go in it core products. cf https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article (Agree with parent but not wanting Go to be left out of the "giant company" bucket.)
    - cweagans 9y ago
      That's not really a direct comparison. We're not talking about languages here - it's the framework. React Native is used and developed by Facebook, whereas Matcha is used and developed by no one notable (afaik).
    - nawgszy 9y ago
      You're comparing Go to RN. The comparison he's making is Matcha to RN. Matcha doesn't come from a giant company. The language it's in does, but that doesn't mean anything for framework momentum.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - muse900 9y ago
      We are discussing about the framework itself and not go as a language. The framework is a nice idea, and will definitely help into diversifying some of the mobile frontend stuff. On the other hand you can't compare RN to this framework. As the person you commented on, facebook has been using RN on its main products like instagram, so it has proven that the framework can be placed on production ready apps with a massive userbase.
MBCook 9y ago
I just saw a tweet this morning reminding React Native people about three20, the previous Facebook framework that they abandoned. At least React Native has been around for a while and has a good sized community. This is a neat little project but I would treat it like a toy unless you were willing to step up and take over maintence before usi it for a production app. (This wasn’t meant as a stab at React Native, it was meant as a warning about picking up frameworks that don’t have much history. RN is a few years old. I don’t think it will disappear next year).
- bsaul 9y ago
  For those who don't know, Three20 really was two order of magnitude less involving if you decided to use it. It really was just a library of convenient classes that you could choose to use or not, or just part of it. RN is an entirely different beast...
  - k__ 9y ago
    Thanks, I never heard of Three20, but I use RN for 5 months now.
    - MBCook 9y ago
      When I saw the original tweet I hadn’t either and had to Google it.
ship_it 9y ago
Tldr: Keep it that way. I've started working on a side-project developing a mobile application when Fuse[1] got "traction". I remember the bashing on HN regarding the name (since well libfuse). I'm usually all sys/backend, but I've got into it. You start digging through their board and see a lot of examples, catch around stuff on their channel and so on. Kind of joy sometimes. The thing is, I've been planning to support both iOS and Android from the early start. So that was really a great choice, it looked promising. Or so was I thinking. After fine 7 months, my new shiny mobile app. was behind somehow manageable code and one developer - me. Stay still, I never worked on mobile before. So I went for market and hit few clients at an early stage. Good news everyone, we got this. As a co-founder with other two, designer and marketing manager, we went out as a `free` and rent the magical space. The hype was there and -. Clients started requesting features, which meant another success. The ideas presented were fine with us and I started working furiously on it. Pressure and all, inb4 start digging for more developers. Few remote devs and features are ready, users love them. Now it gets to more advanced features, UI, code starts to get abstract, and devs aren't sure if they web, script or compile. We somehow managed to stay on ball. After five such months, we ditched the Fuse and rewrote to native. Since devs where remote, they understood the cards. Some of them are still here. Now we are all happy, codebase is eh.. fine, stuff are supported, you know. The story speaks I think. These tools, at early stage, should be took as a grant of salt. I do however appreciate work given towards creating xp stuff. Some of these tools are great for prototyping. [1] https://www.fusetools.com/ https://www.fusetools.com/

RubenSandwich 9y ago

Exactly. I wonder if in the future we will more demand API stability of our host platforms so we aren't rewriting the same framework on every API change. I feel like I'm always building on sinking sand, that my programs have half-lives shorter then radioactive elements. Say what we want about Microsoft but they have always valued API stability.

MBCook 9y ago
Apple’s frameworks are relatively stable. Maybe we shouldn’t be building frameworks on top of frameworks on top of other languages? Maybe officially supported tools/languages are often a good choice.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Experience taught me that it is always the best option for production code.
Fappy 9y ago
I understand what you're getting at and agree with the sentiment. Knowing work on the .NET framework is going to be supported (see: not broken) for years to come is a big factor for deciding on a basket for your eggs. But aren't most radioactive elements notorious for having half-lives that are long with respect to the human lifespan? Just sayin'.
- RubenSandwich 9y ago
  Yeah, the radioactive element comment is more statement on how our products are slowly decaying. But if I was to choose one with a half-life similar to the lifetime of the products I've worked on I'd go with the isotope: Sodium-22 with a half-life of 2.602 years. Edit: Going by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radioactive_isotopes_by_half-life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_radioactive_isotopes_b..., it seems that most of the halflives fall in the 10^(n where n <= 6) seconds category which is smaller than a human lifetime.

cgomezmendez 9y ago

Yes, and there is not big company behind this one as far as I can see, Google's Flutter and Facebook's React Native will for sure have support from these companies cause they have projects written with their frameworks but this one, I'm hessitant.

equasar 9y ago
Right now I'm vouching for Flutter, I tried their golden prototype "Hamilton — The Official App" on a slow android device and it runs pretty smooth. Not sure about iOS tho.

pbreit 9y ago

This sentiment seems to be in the tiny minority.

danpalmer 9y ago
But it could be a major contributing factor to issues like the Javascript framework ecosystem changing every 6 months.
- pbreit 9y ago
  That's my point.

TeeWEE 9y ago

Thats true, however in the long term, we need a react like framework that solves cross platform development. React Native has lots of problems with navigation, the AirBnB team even stopped using it seriously. I guess Kotlin and Kotlin Native (which runs on ios) could be a good started for building a KotlinReactNative, which allows creating an UI in a DSL based syntax that works on multiple platforms.

pdnell 9y ago
@TeeWEE, Do you have any info on why Airbnb stopped using React Native? Would love a good read on why.
- gpeal 9y ago
  We have definitely not stopped using React Native! Not sure where you got that impression. We continue to heavily invest in it as well as native platforms and make a case by case decision for all new products.
- hysan 9y ago
  Also interested in hearing if they really stopped using React Native as a whole. Especially since their react-native-maps library is the defacto library for maps. It would be quite scary if they decided to stop using React Native. Right now, the only thing I'm currently aware of is that their navigation library (native-navigation [1]) is pretty much unmaintained and they are trying to plan out a transition to move it under react-community.[2] The only thing that hints at their slowing use of React Navigation is the mention of conversion to React Native's navigation getting a much lower priority to the point that the native-navigation library has essentially become unmaintained.[3] But when I initially read that, it didn't come off as Airbnb deciding to stop using React Native. [1] https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation [2] https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145 https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145 [3] https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145#issuecomment-329384356 https://github.com/airbnb/native-navigation/issues/145#issue...
danpalmer 9y ago

disconnected 9y ago

The biggest problem with these frameworks is that they ignore the elephant in the room. We already have a widely adopted, widely compatible, highly developed and open framework for cross platform development: webpages. My confidence that Mr. J. Random Hacker - or even J. Random Company Inc. - can do better than this - and support it for over 2 decades - is close to 0.

yoz-y 9y ago
If this framework focalizes on iOS and Android then it might be more useful than webpages in some cases. Native applications are still the way to go if you need to do computationally intensive tasks, UIs that are responsive (especially on Android), UIs that display real time data (especially on iOS) and anything that uses the cool features the phones have.
- Zoon 9y ago
  Can you expand on why non-native iOS apps struggle with displaying real-time data, and why anroid’s struggle with responsiveness?
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    Sure. The current problem on iOS is that you can not replace the web-rendering engine, thus you have to send messages or call callbacks into the web engine api. You have no guarantees as to when they will be actually executed and you have to serialize your data. In my application I needed to display data incoming from a sensor. I can only access this data using the native functions and it comes at around 500Hz from 16 sensors. For comparison, in Electron, when you call a function defined in a module written in C++, you can get the answer in under 1 ms. When using something like Cordova, you have to serialize the data which can take a seriously long time and then you have to wait for the callback to execute. On Android I suppose it is quite possible to write a V8 native plugin and achieve this performance, but not on iOS where you are limited to included webkit. As for the Android responsiveness, the problem lies with the single threaded nature of JavaScript. CPUs on android phones _suck_ in single core performance. When I was looking for a good solution for multi platform development, I have found of a tech meeting that was supposed to present solutions taken by several different companies. It turned to be a huge complaint-fest about Android javascript performance and the only happy people were those using Xamarin (which is native). Edit: Note that I think that using web views for applications like banking or chat and so on is perfectly fine. My issue is with apps that eat a lot of incoming data and/or have to change what is displayed very often.

jd20 9y ago

Well, someone probably said the same about Go or React-Native when they first came out too. We have to start somewhere...

biokoda 9y ago
> Well, someone probably said the same about Go or React-Native when they first came out too RN came from a giant company that uses it in its core product. Big difference.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  As did Go - Google is as equally giant as Facebook and uses Go in it core products. cf https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article https://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article (Agree with parent but not wanting Go to be left out of the "giant company" bucket.)
  - cweagans 9y ago
    That's not really a direct comparison. We're not talking about languages here - it's the framework. React Native is used and developed by Facebook, whereas Matcha is used and developed by no one notable (afaik).
  - nawgszy 9y ago
    You're comparing Go to RN. The comparison he's making is Matcha to RN. Matcha doesn't come from a giant company. The language it's in does, but that doesn't mean anything for framework momentum.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - muse900 9y ago
    We are discussing about the framework itself and not go as a language. The framework is a nice idea, and will definitely help into diversifying some of the mobile frontend stuff. On the other hand you can't compare RN to this framework. As the person you commented on, facebook has been using RN on its main products like instagram, so it has proven that the framework can be placed on production ready apps with a massive userbase.

MBCook 9y ago

I just saw a tweet this morning reminding React Native people about three20, the previous Facebook framework that they abandoned. At least React Native has been around for a while and has a good sized community. This is a neat little project but I would treat it like a toy unless you were willing to step up and take over maintence before usi it for a production app. (This wasn’t meant as a stab at React Native, it was meant as a warning about picking up frameworks that don’t have much history. RN is a few years old. I don’t think it will disappear next year).

bsaul 9y ago
For those who don't know, Three20 really was two order of magnitude less involving if you decided to use it. It really was just a library of convenient classes that you could choose to use or not, or just part of it. RN is an entirely different beast...
- k__ 9y ago
  Thanks, I never heard of Three20, but I use RN for 5 months now.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    When I saw the original tweet I hadn’t either and had to Google it.

ship_it 9y ago

Tldr: Keep it that way. I've started working on a side-project developing a mobile application when Fuse[1] got "traction". I remember the bashing on HN regarding the name (since well libfuse). I'm usually all sys/backend, but I've got into it. You start digging through their board and see a lot of examples, catch around stuff on their channel and so on. Kind of joy sometimes. The thing is, I've been planning to support both iOS and Android from the early start. So that was really a great choice, it looked promising. Or so was I thinking. After fine 7 months, my new shiny mobile app. was behind somehow manageable code and one developer - me. Stay still, I never worked on mobile before. So I went for market and hit few clients at an early stage. Good news everyone, we got this. As a co-founder with other two, designer and marketing manager, we went out as a `free` and rent the magical space. The hype was there and -. Clients started requesting features, which meant another success. The ideas presented were fine with us and I started working furiously on it. Pressure and all, inb4 start digging for more developers. Few remote devs and features are ready, users love them. Now it gets to more advanced features, UI, code starts to get abstract, and devs aren't sure if they web, script or compile. We somehow managed to stay on ball. After five such months, we ditched the Fuse and rewrote to native. Since devs where remote, they understood the cards. Some of them are still here. Now we are all happy, codebase is eh.. fine, stuff are supported, you know. The story speaks I think. These tools, at early stage, should be took as a grant of salt. I do however appreciate work given towards creating xp stuff. Some of these tools are great for prototyping. [1] https://www.fusetools.com/ https://www.fusetools.com/