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Most teams don't hire a "mobile developer", they hire an Android developer, and/or iOS developer, and/or React Native developer, and/or Flutter Developer. So un

by throw14082020 5y ago

Most teams don't hire a "mobile developer", they hire an Android developer, and/or iOS developer, and/or React Native developer, and/or Flutter Developer. So unfortunately it requires some commitment, don't do all of them at once! - React Native: Easiest to learn, good build tools/ developer experience, good amount of jobs already. Unfortunately, React Native is naturally intertwined with JS/ react, so you'll face issues with the complex world of javascript. I won't say its slow, but it certainly doesn't work for all types of apps. Also, avoid Expo completely. - Flutter: Easy to learn, amazing build tools/ devex, very few jobs (though predictably growing). If you become a flutter developer, you can be confident the company that hired you has thought about the tech stack a little more. React Native is the defacto for quick and dirty apps (MVP), and Flutter is for more of a company thats investing in its technology, I would say. - Android: Okay to learn, very good build tools/ devex, more jobs - iOS: hardest to learn, okay build tools/ devex, fewer jobs Difficulty is measured by how long it would take you to implement a feature you don't know, or just my rough feeling of building apps in all platforms, some of them professionally. Im very unusual to know all 4, and I have not met anyone else like me in my jobs. I would pick Flutter, because you're not optimising for today, and Flutter will be there in 5 years, regardless of how big https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ gets E.g. The tech lead for Flutter worked on HTML, CSS, WebSockets.

geonic 5y ago
Could elaborate on why to avoid expo? I found it super easy to use when I dipped my toes into RN development. Also, what alternative are you suggesting?
- rhodysurf 5y ago
  I’ll give two reasons. First, code bloat, expo bundles allllll their default libraries along with your app when packaged for release. Second, is flexibility. The most powerful part of react native is that it displays native views and with expo you are only given the native functionality they bundle for you, you cannot create your own. The alternative is to just not use expo and add libraries as you need them. Then you can do things like add widgets and watchOS functionality to your app on iOS using native code. Or create your own custom native views and plugins that bind to the native sdks, giving you an edge over other bland RN apps. I love RN but only when used correctly.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  If you do use Expo, you should eject as soon as possible and pick which libraries you explicitly want to include. I reduced my app size by like 60% after ejecting because of all the stuff I didn't need that was included.
rhodysurf 5y ago
I very much disagree that Android is easier to learn and iOS. The iOS SDK is incredibly simple to get started with compared to android. Dealing with extensions on iOS is really hard, but creating apps involves so much less boilerplate than in android. XCode isn’t great, but I am not a IntelliJ Jetbrains fan at all, their IDEs are way too heavy for my taste.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  I concur. Another big benefit of iOS vs. Android is that the iOS SDK is both generally more capable (greatly reduced need for third party dependencies) and opinionated. The latter is hugely important because it means there’s a well supported “happy path” for almost everything, simplifying development. It’s a stark contrast to Android Framework where there’s 6 ways to do everything, 3 of which are deprecated, 2 that have odd gaps in functionality, 1 that’s the new shiny thing that’s too immature for production use, and none of which are generally “right”.
  - throw14082020 5y ago
    To explain further why I think iOS is harder - Where will you learn it? Apple documentation is bad. remember this? "On Apple's Piss-Poor Documentation", 1180 points to date https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046691 Android documentation is great. Yes there are at least 5 ways to do something e.g. schedule background work, load files, but its very clearly deprecated in their docs/ in the code. You can, read the code because it is open source. If you find a bug in Apple's library, what do you do? - There are more developers, more stack overflow questions/ answers and more resources on the internet in general for Android. So even when Android has edge cases/ backwards compatibility issues, its more likely than iOS that someone has written about it. - Apple tooling is bad: Xcode is not a good IDE to put it lightly. It gets 3 stars on the App Store. The actual code editing part is just a text editor, e.g. searching for function calls involves using the search function, as opposed to a keyboard shortcut that uses static code analysis. Most warnings for your code won't show up until you try to build it, therefore the feedback loop is extremely slow. Many iOS developers I've known admit they do not like Xcode. To upload your iOS app to the app store, you upload gigabytes of binaries. Code refactoring features do not exist on Xcode. Android Studio is one of the best IDE's I've used, and constantly adds support for more features: WorkManager inspector, deploy/debug multiple devices at once. Also, new features come out for Android Studio all the time, and Xcode seems to have not been updated with features that benefit me for a long time. Jetbrains IDEs generally work straight off the bat, and I'm very happy to see AppCode (Xcode competitor by Jetbrains) available, though it is thoroughly buggy at the moment, I still use it because writing code is nicer in AppCode. - Basic things in the apple ecosystem are broken/ buggy: e.g. New developers in a team will have issues signing their application with the company team, the trick/ fix is to remove/ add a Xcode/ iOS capability to the project, and remove it immediately. Then signing will work. Signing the app is literally the first thing that needs to be done, why is this not fixed? - Swift is much nicer than Objective-C to program in, but its not as nice as Kotlin. I don't want to get into programming language comparison (im sure there are connoisseurs here who can), but my opinion of reading Swift code is they are less readable and results in unusual architecture. Swift apps are also slower and bigger than Objective-C apps. Some Apple APIs are also designed in a painfully complicated way. It seems like they do not get much feedback from developers about their APIs, whereas Android is constantly getting feedback and improving. Some developers complain that Swift has changed, breaking older Swift code. I haven't heard this from Kotlin developers. Sorry that felt like a rant. In the end you've can choose based on - Comfort: Android is much more ergonomic for the reasons above - Developer competition: You'll be competing with more Android developers worldwide: Android is more than 85% of the smartphone market - Money: iOS costs $100 annually (not much but if you're starting out your first app, maybe it is). The upside is if you live in a rich country, many people use iPhones, and they also tend to spend more money on the app store. - Market trends: iOS has added ATT/ privacy features. They've also got powerful chips but it seems like no one has learnt how to use them yet. They are ahead on hardware (M1, A14), they've got great market share in Western countries, and are poised to take even more with recent developments.
SilurianWenlock 5y ago
Is react native is easy to learn?
- hackflip 5y ago
  If you're already a proficient React developer, yes.

geonic 5y ago

Could elaborate on why to avoid expo? I found it super easy to use when I dipped my toes into RN development. Also, what alternative are you suggesting?

rhodysurf 5y ago
I’ll give two reasons. First, code bloat, expo bundles allllll their default libraries along with your app when packaged for release. Second, is flexibility. The most powerful part of react native is that it displays native views and with expo you are only given the native functionality they bundle for you, you cannot create your own. The alternative is to just not use expo and add libraries as you need them. Then you can do things like add widgets and watchOS functionality to your app on iOS using native code. Or create your own custom native views and plugins that bind to the native sdks, giving you an edge over other bland RN apps. I love RN but only when used correctly.
halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
If you do use Expo, you should eject as soon as possible and pick which libraries you explicitly want to include. I reduced my app size by like 60% after ejecting because of all the stuff I didn't need that was included.

rhodysurf 5y ago

I very much disagree that Android is easier to learn and iOS. The iOS SDK is incredibly simple to get started with compared to android. Dealing with extensions on iOS is really hard, but creating apps involves so much less boilerplate than in android. XCode isn’t great, but I am not a IntelliJ Jetbrains fan at all, their IDEs are way too heavy for my taste.

kitsunesoba 5y ago
I concur. Another big benefit of iOS vs. Android is that the iOS SDK is both generally more capable (greatly reduced need for third party dependencies) and opinionated. The latter is hugely important because it means there’s a well supported “happy path” for almost everything, simplifying development. It’s a stark contrast to Android Framework where there’s 6 ways to do everything, 3 of which are deprecated, 2 that have odd gaps in functionality, 1 that’s the new shiny thing that’s too immature for production use, and none of which are generally “right”.
- throw14082020 5y ago
  To explain further why I think iOS is harder - Where will you learn it? Apple documentation is bad. remember this? "On Apple's Piss-Poor Documentation", 1180 points to date https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25046691 Android documentation is great. Yes there are at least 5 ways to do something e.g. schedule background work, load files, but its very clearly deprecated in their docs/ in the code. You can, read the code because it is open source. If you find a bug in Apple's library, what do you do? - There are more developers, more stack overflow questions/ answers and more resources on the internet in general for Android. So even when Android has edge cases/ backwards compatibility issues, its more likely than iOS that someone has written about it. - Apple tooling is bad: Xcode is not a good IDE to put it lightly. It gets 3 stars on the App Store. The actual code editing part is just a text editor, e.g. searching for function calls involves using the search function, as opposed to a keyboard shortcut that uses static code analysis. Most warnings for your code won't show up until you try to build it, therefore the feedback loop is extremely slow. Many iOS developers I've known admit they do not like Xcode. To upload your iOS app to the app store, you upload gigabytes of binaries. Code refactoring features do not exist on Xcode. Android Studio is one of the best IDE's I've used, and constantly adds support for more features: WorkManager inspector, deploy/debug multiple devices at once. Also, new features come out for Android Studio all the time, and Xcode seems to have not been updated with features that benefit me for a long time. Jetbrains IDEs generally work straight off the bat, and I'm very happy to see AppCode (Xcode competitor by Jetbrains) available, though it is thoroughly buggy at the moment, I still use it because writing code is nicer in AppCode. - Basic things in the apple ecosystem are broken/ buggy: e.g. New developers in a team will have issues signing their application with the company team, the trick/ fix is to remove/ add a Xcode/ iOS capability to the project, and remove it immediately. Then signing will work. Signing the app is literally the first thing that needs to be done, why is this not fixed? - Swift is much nicer than Objective-C to program in, but its not as nice as Kotlin. I don't want to get into programming language comparison (im sure there are connoisseurs here who can), but my opinion of reading Swift code is they are less readable and results in unusual architecture. Swift apps are also slower and bigger than Objective-C apps. Some Apple APIs are also designed in a painfully complicated way. It seems like they do not get much feedback from developers about their APIs, whereas Android is constantly getting feedback and improving. Some developers complain that Swift has changed, breaking older Swift code. I haven't heard this from Kotlin developers. Sorry that felt like a rant. In the end you've can choose based on - Comfort: Android is much more ergonomic for the reasons above - Developer competition: You'll be competing with more Android developers worldwide: Android is more than 85% of the smartphone market - Money: iOS costs $100 annually (not much but if you're starting out your first app, maybe it is). The upside is if you live in a rich country, many people use iPhones, and they also tend to spend more money on the app store. - Market trends: iOS has added ATT/ privacy features. They've also got powerful chips but it seems like no one has learnt how to use them yet. They are ahead on hardware (M1, A14), they've got great market share in Western countries, and are poised to take even more with recent developments.

SilurianWenlock 5y ago

Is react native is easy to learn?

hackflip 5y ago
If you're already a proficient React developer, yes.