5 ms·

RN's not really core to Meta tbh. The most important surfaces are all built either natively or with NT / Blocks I think. Also ~19 months outdated though.

metadat 4y ago
What do NT and Block mean in this context?
flakyfilibuster 4y ago
source? "tbh" and "I think" is cool and all, however I could also just throw out things I believe Would be nice to know where you get your information from, that RN isn't core to Meta
zffr 4y ago
I interviewed at Meta more recently than that, and the engineers I spoke with mentioned the same thing.
gavinray 4y ago
What's "NT / Blocks"?
- shrisukhani 4y ago
  Sorry about that, should've clarified! NT - Native Templates. It's a cross-platform app dev framework where you can write Hack on the server once to make surfaces for both iOS and Android. Blocks is similar to NT but in Python (IG backend is all Python)
  - gavinray 4y ago
    Ah, got it, thank you!
  - tristanbvk 4y ago
    How does it work. In the sense that what does it provide the client side. Does the client get served pre-rendered interfaces of some sort? Trying to figure it out as the Meta apps are very nice UX wise and maybe web technologies have come a long way to "feel native" hence i am in disbelief at the leaps and bounds being made.
    - shrisukhani 4y ago
      Not super sure about how the internals work but iirc this is the flow: - Eng writes Hack/Python code on backend with a view tag-ish - Client has native components for NT and Blocks. The native component references tag-ish from above and pulls code / config - The code / config returned from the backend gets translated into Litho/ComponentKit components (so native Android UI elements) and rendered
      - emptysea 4y ago
        what is `tag-ish`? Having trouble googling it
      - tristanbvk 4y ago
        Interesting! Thanks for the explanation!
  - emptysea 4y ago
    Interesting, does it cross compile a hack based DSL to iOS and android? Curious to hear more!
- camdat 4y ago
  Think full-featured bootstrap components. Design + FE build "Bloks", product teams use them everywhere.
olalonde 4y ago
Do you work at Meta? This tweet from 2020 seems to imply it is used pretty extensively: https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1234801516843819009 https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1234801516843819009
- battery_glasses 4y ago
  I was at Meta when this was tweeted and I think he must be referring to mostly internal apps. AFAIK the only part of the FB app that was heavily React Native was FB Marketplace. By 2021 there were edicts in some departments that absolutely no new projects were to written with RN, with the emphasis moving towards their server-side rendering frameworks (Native Templates and Bloks.)
  - no_wizard 4y ago
    Wonder if that means React Native will either get turned over to a foundation or will be de-prioritized / ended as a project

metadat 4y ago

What do NT and Block mean in this context?

flakyfilibuster 4y ago

source? "tbh" and "I think" is cool and all, however I could also just throw out things I believe Would be nice to know where you get your information from, that RN isn't core to Meta

zffr 4y ago

I interviewed at Meta more recently than that, and the engineers I spoke with mentioned the same thing.

gavinray 4y ago

What's "NT / Blocks"?

shrisukhani 4y ago
Sorry about that, should've clarified! NT - Native Templates. It's a cross-platform app dev framework where you can write Hack on the server once to make surfaces for both iOS and Android. Blocks is similar to NT but in Python (IG backend is all Python)
- gavinray 4y ago
  Ah, got it, thank you!
- tristanbvk 4y ago
  How does it work. In the sense that what does it provide the client side. Does the client get served pre-rendered interfaces of some sort? Trying to figure it out as the Meta apps are very nice UX wise and maybe web technologies have come a long way to "feel native" hence i am in disbelief at the leaps and bounds being made.
  - shrisukhani 4y ago
    Not super sure about how the internals work but iirc this is the flow: - Eng writes Hack/Python code on backend with a view tag-ish - Client has native components for NT and Blocks. The native component references tag-ish from above and pulls code / config - The code / config returned from the backend gets translated into Litho/ComponentKit components (so native Android UI elements) and rendered
    - emptysea 4y ago
      what is `tag-ish`? Having trouble googling it
    - tristanbvk 4y ago
      Interesting! Thanks for the explanation!
- emptysea 4y ago
  Interesting, does it cross compile a hack based DSL to iOS and android? Curious to hear more!
camdat 4y ago
Think full-featured bootstrap components. Design + FE build "Bloks", product teams use them everywhere.

olalonde 4y ago

Do you work at Meta? This tweet from 2020 seems to imply it is used pretty extensively: https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1234801516843819009 https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1234801516843819009

battery_glasses 4y ago
I was at Meta when this was tweeted and I think he must be referring to mostly internal apps. AFAIK the only part of the FB app that was heavily React Native was FB Marketplace. By 2021 there were edicts in some departments that absolutely no new projects were to written with RN, with the emphasis moving towards their server-side rendering frameworks (Native Templates and Bloks.)
- no_wizard 4y ago
  Wonder if that means React Native will either get turned over to a foundation or will be de-prioritized / ended as a project