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> React-Native is great, the only problem is that Facebook does not do enough to nurture the open source use of it, and this creates lots of extra work for team

> React-Native is great, the only problem is that Facebook does not do enough to nurture the open source use of it, and this creates lots of extra work for teams using it. Airbnb's decision to abandon RN is clearly due to engineering blunders and political nonsense internal to Airbnb, which has little to do with RN itself. This is a very generalised opinion for a very specific technology with _many_ significant trade offs. React native can be excellent for one team, and terrible for a different team at the same time. It may be great in your specific circumstances, but I’d give Airbnbs mature engineering team the benefit of the doubt that it isn’t the right fit for them.

resters 8y ago
Well, if you read all the blog posts and read in between the lines a bit, they had a group of native developers who preferred to use their existing native skill set to build things, and since there was no unified approach to state, it became cumbersome to manage state between a hodgepodge of rn and native components. So already the deck is severely stacked against rn because of the lack of guiding architecture decisions. Then one can imagine how experienced native developers would end up with political leverage to evict rn, and by the time it happened it may have been the right choice. But if architecture is done correctly the main problems Airbnb had would simply not happen and many of those native devs would not have had to be hired in the first place.
- aplummer 8y ago
  The fact that you have jumped to "speculate airbnb developers are unprofessional and their architects are bad" is definitely something you could think about. > Well, if you read all the blog posts > they had a group of native developers who preferred to use their existing native skill set to build things, and since there was no unified approach to state, it became cumbersome to manage state between a hodgepodge of rn and native components This is an immature straw man reducing their issues to one thing - it's a long blog series I have read (and presented back to clients in a series of case studies). I don't want to come in too hot because it's increasingly clear you are pretty fresh in your career, but taking this kind of negative view based on pure speculation is really going to be limiting for you. As I said, RN is great in some circumstances, but like any framework / tech there _is many_ cases and orgs where it is not a good fit.
  - resters 8y ago
    > reducing their issues to one thing Not at all, I focused on the one thing that was mentioned as the most significant reason for team frustration with react native. > I don't want to come in too hot No worries > it's increasingly clear you are pretty fresh in your career I was thinking the same thing about you, no offense. > but taking this kind of negative view Not sure what you found negative about my view. Teams and individuals make mistakes and misjudgments. That is part of life. If you read my comments I said that removing RN was probably the right thing to do by the time it happened. This is often the case with bad technological decisions in startups and is rational because of sunk cost. > many_ cases and orgs where it is not a good fit This is why I cite architecture. With react or react-native you really need to know where the data is coming from and how the data will flow through the application. I'm arguing that the architect should have had a plan for how this would work before introducing react native into the app. Airbnb has done a lot of great react-native work, so I know the issue isn't technical competency, but the linting rules Airbnb popularized suggest a very trees-oriented (not forest oriented) perspective on tech, which is the kind of perspective that makes the above kind of mistake.
    - aplummer 8y ago
      > Not sure what you found negative about my view. Cool reading your other comments too I realise I’m getting trolled at this point so I’ll finish up here.
      - resters 8y ago
        > I’m getting trolled In other words you have no rational or thoughtful response and have for the second time decided to use ad hominem attacks, this time the highly sophisticated one known as name calling.

resters 8y ago

Well, if you read all the blog posts and read in between the lines a bit, they had a group of native developers who preferred to use their existing native skill set to build things, and since there was no unified approach to state, it became cumbersome to manage state between a hodgepodge of rn and native components. So already the deck is severely stacked against rn because of the lack of guiding architecture decisions. Then one can imagine how experienced native developers would end up with political leverage to evict rn, and by the time it happened it may have been the right choice. But if architecture is done correctly the main problems Airbnb had would simply not happen and many of those native devs would not have had to be hired in the first place.

aplummer 8y ago
The fact that you have jumped to "speculate airbnb developers are unprofessional and their architects are bad" is definitely something you could think about. > Well, if you read all the blog posts > they had a group of native developers who preferred to use their existing native skill set to build things, and since there was no unified approach to state, it became cumbersome to manage state between a hodgepodge of rn and native components This is an immature straw man reducing their issues to one thing - it's a long blog series I have read (and presented back to clients in a series of case studies). I don't want to come in too hot because it's increasingly clear you are pretty fresh in your career, but taking this kind of negative view based on pure speculation is really going to be limiting for you. As I said, RN is great in some circumstances, but like any framework / tech there _is many_ cases and orgs where it is not a good fit.
- resters 8y ago
  > reducing their issues to one thing Not at all, I focused on the one thing that was mentioned as the most significant reason for team frustration with react native. > I don't want to come in too hot No worries > it's increasingly clear you are pretty fresh in your career I was thinking the same thing about you, no offense. > but taking this kind of negative view Not sure what you found negative about my view. Teams and individuals make mistakes and misjudgments. That is part of life. If you read my comments I said that removing RN was probably the right thing to do by the time it happened. This is often the case with bad technological decisions in startups and is rational because of sunk cost. > many_ cases and orgs where it is not a good fit This is why I cite architecture. With react or react-native you really need to know where the data is coming from and how the data will flow through the application. I'm arguing that the architect should have had a plan for how this would work before introducing react native into the app. Airbnb has done a lot of great react-native work, so I know the issue isn't technical competency, but the linting rules Airbnb popularized suggest a very trees-oriented (not forest oriented) perspective on tech, which is the kind of perspective that makes the above kind of mistake.
  - aplummer 8y ago
    > Not sure what you found negative about my view. Cool reading your other comments too I realise I’m getting trolled at this point so I’ll finish up here.
    - resters 8y ago
      > I’m getting trolled In other words you have no rational or thoughtful response and have for the second time decided to use ad hominem attacks, this time the highly sophisticated one known as name calling.