6 ms·

I'm under the impression, in Udacity's case especially, that part of the problem stems from asking native engineers to use a language and ecosystem that they're

by txmjs 8y ago

I'm under the impression, in Udacity's case especially, that part of the problem stems from asking native engineers to use a language and ecosystem that they're not used to working with, and then trying to get them to integrate RN code into an established, brownfield native codebase. As a sole dev in a 3-person startup, I’ve managed to build a pretty large app with React Native, having zero prior native experience (although, that’s not to say that I haven’t had to learn a _lot_ about Xcode!)

jwarren 8y ago
I had a pretty similar experience. It's still a challenging environment - getting performance and memory management nailed across platforms and devices took some very careful engineering. Based on my limited experience with native iOS app development, RN actually requires an almost completely different way of working.
- bottled_poe 8y ago
  That sounds like unnecessary complexity, skills and cost. Until it’s simpler to build, higher quality and a more predictable result than native, i will continue to use native frameworks.
  - ricardobeat 8y ago
    That's the entire proposition - easier to build, faster to iterate, cross-platform development, overlap with web development skills (and ecosystem).
  - x0x0 8y ago
    The giant carrot is reducing ios + android development from, say, 80% more work than ios alone to even 20% more work.
    - kybernetikos 8y ago
      And with the right practices it's possible to share a huge amount of Web code too.
laurent123456 8y ago
That was my impression as well. What he wrote about localisation as well - they are trying to localise text in RN files, native iOS files and Android files, maybe using a different approach for each platform, so of course it's complicated. I managed to localise a relatively large cross-platform app built in Electron and React Native using gettext and had no problem with it. It supports 18 languages and people send me update from time to time, which are very easy to integrate.
- coding123 8y ago
  It seemed a large part of their frustration was integrating the native with react native. I think too if you decide to use react native you don't hire more iOS and Android specific devs, you hire react native devs and replace the entire native codebase.
blub 8y ago
Show us the app and ideally some code to let us judge how well you managed then. I believe the standards for native development are well known at this point.
- i6mi6 8y ago
  Check out GoodOrBad - Simple Meal Logging on the stores, it’s fully React Native with some little native code (push notifications, etc.)
  - kylnew 8y ago
    Checked this app out of curiosity. It’s decent but doesn’t feel native to me. Each platform has its own nuanced differences that we might think is okay to ignore but customers see through when the experience isn’t consistent with past expectations. The transition animations in some situations were what felt out of place to me in particular.
  - tzahola 8y ago
    1. When the app starts, the onboarding screen appears with a flicker/glitch: https://imgur.com/IyjM82n https://imgur.com/IyjM82n 2. The app starts with a launch image (the logo in the center), which then fades away to show another launch image (with the logo on the top half of the screen): https://imgur.com/0n3Zbof https://imgur.com/0n3Zbof (probably because ReactNative must load the JS bundle before it can show anything) 3. The login screen of the application fits on the screen, yet it can be scrolled up/down for seemingly no reason. The amount you can scroll feels suspiciously close to the height of the iOS status bar: https://imgur.com/P6conGz https://imgur.com/P6conGz (probably because ReactNative sets the UIScrollView's contentInset incorrectly) 4. Text fields / buttons look like on a website. 5. When you navigate back from the login screen after a failed login, there's a brief moment while the "Unsuccessful login with Facebook" message is visible, which then quickly disappears: https://imgur.com/hTTKbIt https://imgur.com/hTTKbIt Sorry, but it feels like a webapp to me. Though it might be perfect for your use case! Update: I've found some other issues: 6. You can't interact with buttons (e.g. "Next" button on registration) while the keyboard is visible: https://imgur.com/dpy5xv8 https://imgur.com/dpy5xv8 7. The first time you switch to a tab, it's completely empty, then suddenly the content pops into place: https://imgur.com/JKaCJED https://imgur.com/JKaCJED 8. Tapping on the search button makes the content of the previous page jolt against the top of the screen while navigating to the search page: https://imgur.com/BJDYvda https://imgur.com/BJDYvda (focus on the panda) 9. The "sidebar" menu feels very out of place on iOS. Also, when you select e.g. "Settings", the content on the right does a very weird fade/slide animation: https://imgur.com/ChNzvwW https://imgur.com/ChNzvwW 10. When you switch between two non-adjacent tabs, the viewport slides over the in-between tabs too: https://imgur.com/BZFU0Sv https://imgur.com/BZFU0Sv
anothergoogler 8y ago
Spot on, they should fire their mobile devs and hire more Full Stack JavaScript DevOps ninjas. Those guys do it all, resource allocation baby!
- anad7 8y ago
  If only we could learn from past experiences, many companies have done that in the past because some CXO thought that they could save some money using hybrid frameworks, didn't go well for them and they ended up writing native apps. It's like you are asking people to fire "Master of one" and hire "Masters of none".
gtycomb 8y ago
> stems from asking native engineers to use a language and ecosystem that they're not used to working with yes, so reminiscent of “enterprise” situations where SAP (or put any of your other favorite's name here) is so dominant. In a recent situation, the marketing side of the business kept asking for newer agile mobile technologies, and so the cio-purchasing-manager engages Gartner (or put any of your other favorite consultant’s name here) for guidance. Well, the result is to start an in-house prototyping team composed of who -- folks seeped in SAP maintenance but who wants to learn the newer mobile technologies for career development. They do create some prototypes but so many things remain open while they are busy doing their daily SAP work, their forte. The CIO then steps in to satisfy the marketing folks: We buy SAP’s packaged solution for mobility and an outside consultant will integrate it. Problem solved. Or is it? The answer waits another three years when the integration is really completed, by then the CIO leaves and the issues need to be visited again.
blizkreeg 8y ago
Can I reach out to you? My team will shortly be starting out with RN to build our mobile app. I'd love to get some pointers and advice on what we can do to make it as successful an experience as possible.
- txmjs 8y ago
  Of course - email in bio :)
- axemclion 8y ago
  If you have questions, you can ping the RN team too. I would love to help !!

by txmjs 8y ago

jwarren 8y ago

I had a pretty similar experience. It's still a challenging environment - getting performance and memory management nailed across platforms and devices took some very careful engineering. Based on my limited experience with native iOS app development, RN actually requires an almost completely different way of working.

bottled_poe 8y ago
That sounds like unnecessary complexity, skills and cost. Until it’s simpler to build, higher quality and a more predictable result than native, i will continue to use native frameworks.
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  That's the entire proposition - easier to build, faster to iterate, cross-platform development, overlap with web development skills (and ecosystem).
- x0x0 8y ago
  The giant carrot is reducing ios + android development from, say, 80% more work than ios alone to even 20% more work.
  - kybernetikos 8y ago
    And with the right practices it's possible to share a huge amount of Web code too.

laurent123456 8y ago

That was my impression as well. What he wrote about localisation as well - they are trying to localise text in RN files, native iOS files and Android files, maybe using a different approach for each platform, so of course it's complicated. I managed to localise a relatively large cross-platform app built in Electron and React Native using gettext and had no problem with it. It supports 18 languages and people send me update from time to time, which are very easy to integrate.

coding123 8y ago
It seemed a large part of their frustration was integrating the native with react native. I think too if you decide to use react native you don't hire more iOS and Android specific devs, you hire react native devs and replace the entire native codebase.

blub 8y ago

Show us the app and ideally some code to let us judge how well you managed then. I believe the standards for native development are well known at this point.

i6mi6 8y ago
Check out GoodOrBad - Simple Meal Logging on the stores, it’s fully React Native with some little native code (push notifications, etc.)
- kylnew 8y ago
  Checked this app out of curiosity. It’s decent but doesn’t feel native to me. Each platform has its own nuanced differences that we might think is okay to ignore but customers see through when the experience isn’t consistent with past expectations. The transition animations in some situations were what felt out of place to me in particular.
- tzahola 8y ago
  1. When the app starts, the onboarding screen appears with a flicker/glitch: https://imgur.com/IyjM82n https://imgur.com/IyjM82n 2. The app starts with a launch image (the logo in the center), which then fades away to show another launch image (with the logo on the top half of the screen): https://imgur.com/0n3Zbof https://imgur.com/0n3Zbof (probably because ReactNative must load the JS bundle before it can show anything) 3. The login screen of the application fits on the screen, yet it can be scrolled up/down for seemingly no reason. The amount you can scroll feels suspiciously close to the height of the iOS status bar: https://imgur.com/P6conGz https://imgur.com/P6conGz (probably because ReactNative sets the UIScrollView's contentInset incorrectly) 4. Text fields / buttons look like on a website. 5. When you navigate back from the login screen after a failed login, there's a brief moment while the "Unsuccessful login with Facebook" message is visible, which then quickly disappears: https://imgur.com/hTTKbIt https://imgur.com/hTTKbIt Sorry, but it feels like a webapp to me. Though it might be perfect for your use case! Update: I've found some other issues: 6. You can't interact with buttons (e.g. "Next" button on registration) while the keyboard is visible: https://imgur.com/dpy5xv8 https://imgur.com/dpy5xv8 7. The first time you switch to a tab, it's completely empty, then suddenly the content pops into place: https://imgur.com/JKaCJED https://imgur.com/JKaCJED 8. Tapping on the search button makes the content of the previous page jolt against the top of the screen while navigating to the search page: https://imgur.com/BJDYvda https://imgur.com/BJDYvda (focus on the panda) 9. The "sidebar" menu feels very out of place on iOS. Also, when you select e.g. "Settings", the content on the right does a very weird fade/slide animation: https://imgur.com/ChNzvwW https://imgur.com/ChNzvwW 10. When you switch between two non-adjacent tabs, the viewport slides over the in-between tabs too: https://imgur.com/BZFU0Sv https://imgur.com/BZFU0Sv

anothergoogler 8y ago

Spot on, they should fire their mobile devs and hire more Full Stack JavaScript DevOps ninjas. Those guys do it all, resource allocation baby!

anad7 8y ago
If only we could learn from past experiences, many companies have done that in the past because some CXO thought that they could save some money using hybrid frameworks, didn't go well for them and they ended up writing native apps. It's like you are asking people to fire "Master of one" and hire "Masters of none".

gtycomb 8y ago

> stems from asking native engineers to use a language and ecosystem that they're not used to working with yes, so reminiscent of “enterprise” situations where SAP (or put any of your other favorite's name here) is so dominant. In a recent situation, the marketing side of the business kept asking for newer agile mobile technologies, and so the cio-purchasing-manager engages Gartner (or put any of your other favorite consultant’s name here) for guidance. Well, the result is to start an in-house prototyping team composed of who -- folks seeped in SAP maintenance but who wants to learn the newer mobile technologies for career development. They do create some prototypes but so many things remain open while they are busy doing their daily SAP work, their forte. The CIO then steps in to satisfy the marketing folks: We buy SAP’s packaged solution for mobility and an outside consultant will integrate it. Problem solved. Or is it? The answer waits another three years when the integration is really completed, by then the CIO leaves and the issues need to be visited again.

blizkreeg 8y ago

Can I reach out to you? My team will shortly be starting out with RN to build our mobile app. I'd love to get some pointers and advice on what we can do to make it as successful an experience as possible.

txmjs 8y ago
Of course - email in bio :)
axemclion 8y ago
If you have questions, you can ping the RN team too. I would love to help !!