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I'm curious about the major pains with React-native you experienced. Is it because of the toolchain for RN? or some specific scenario?

ericlewis 7y ago
As a contributor to RN and someone who loves SwiftUI just as much: it’s mostly the toolchain. You have an unbelievably vertically integrated framework with SwiftUI.
- rauchp 7y ago
  Do you think SwiftUI is still too experimental to build out a production-ready app? I'm a RN dev leading the app development at our startup, but every time I check on SwiftUI I LOVE what I see. Sadly it looks like the final results are mostly tech demos rather than fully integrated apps. Thinking maybe we have to wait for a behemoth's adoption (like AirBnB & React Native) to take the ecosystem to the next level.
  - ericlewis 7y ago
    I would say it just depends, which I know isn't satisfying as an answer. I shipped an app named Eggy which is all SwiftUI- but it isn't super complex exactly. There are still plenty of simple problems that are hard to get around. But you can definitely use it to replace pieces of an app.
  - acarrera94 7y ago
    I also shipped an app for a client called Droplii. I definitely believe you can use it for production level apps. Productivity is through the roof. There are just a few small quirks, but I believe the pros out weigh the cons here.
  - jamil7 7y ago
    I've shipped a small app in it and am collaborating on another currently. If you're looking to use it on your team I'd wait for this years online WWDC, see whats announced and evaluate from there.
dpeck 7y ago
Sibling comment here mostly covered it, toolchain is kind of all over the place and build times are way faster with swiftui on my 2015 MacBook. Also with Combine and associated bits there is a lot less boilerplate around state that doesn’t have to be written. Also the disk space for the js ecosystem is beyond crazy and really bothers me.
jamil7 7y ago
Compared to native development the toolchain and dependencies are out of control and I'm unsure how it can really be improved, Expo does a decent job of abstracting some of it but you lose so much from the managed workflow that it makes me question the purpose of building a native app at all. I think the real threat that PWAs bring is to frameworks like React Native and Cordova rather than fully native apps which will likely always have specific use cases.

ericlewis 7y ago

As a contributor to RN and someone who loves SwiftUI just as much: it’s mostly the toolchain. You have an unbelievably vertically integrated framework with SwiftUI.

rauchp 7y ago
Do you think SwiftUI is still too experimental to build out a production-ready app? I'm a RN dev leading the app development at our startup, but every time I check on SwiftUI I LOVE what I see. Sadly it looks like the final results are mostly tech demos rather than fully integrated apps. Thinking maybe we have to wait for a behemoth's adoption (like AirBnB & React Native) to take the ecosystem to the next level.
- ericlewis 7y ago
  I would say it just depends, which I know isn't satisfying as an answer. I shipped an app named Eggy which is all SwiftUI- but it isn't super complex exactly. There are still plenty of simple problems that are hard to get around. But you can definitely use it to replace pieces of an app.
- acarrera94 7y ago
  I also shipped an app for a client called Droplii. I definitely believe you can use it for production level apps. Productivity is through the roof. There are just a few small quirks, but I believe the pros out weigh the cons here.
- jamil7 7y ago
  I've shipped a small app in it and am collaborating on another currently. If you're looking to use it on your team I'd wait for this years online WWDC, see whats announced and evaluate from there.

dpeck 7y ago

Sibling comment here mostly covered it, toolchain is kind of all over the place and build times are way faster with swiftui on my 2015 MacBook. Also with Combine and associated bits there is a lot less boilerplate around state that doesn’t have to be written. Also the disk space for the js ecosystem is beyond crazy and really bothers me.

jamil7 7y ago

Compared to native development the toolchain and dependencies are out of control and I'm unsure how it can really be improved, Expo does a decent job of abstracting some of it but you lose so much from the managed workflow that it makes me question the purpose of building a native app at all. I think the real threat that PWAs bring is to frameworks like React Native and Cordova rather than fully native apps which will likely always have specific use cases.