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I've launched 3 Turbo Native apps to the iOS and Android stores. I found it 80% awesome, 20% frustrating. Of that 20%, some was bugs or missing features in the
by ghiculescu 4y ago
I've launched 3 Turbo Native apps to the iOS and Android stores. I found it 80% awesome, 20% frustrating. Of that 20%, some was bugs or missing features in the frameworks, many of which have been resolved.
But mostly it was because expectations not matching reality. When I first heard about Turbo Native I read the pitch as "write all your app on web, and get native free". (Maybe that was my optimism.) In reality you really do need to think about native all the time. You can do your development in the browser, but for almost any app you'll need to at least test in the simulator, and you should test on device. Also, you will have to write native code at some point.
This is not a problem if you have native developers on your team, or if you want to learn Kotlin and Swift, or if you work with a consultant like Joe. It is a bummer if you want to make the one-person app that Rails always talks about. For me the frustrating thing was that I wasn't using these languages often - I wasn't writing native code every day. So when I did need to write/debug native code, half the time was spent remembering how Swift is different to Ruby and how to use Android Studio.
All that said, I still think Turbo Native is a game changer for B2B apps. It's much better than writing 2 native apps from scratch. It's just not a silver bullet!
I also think for a long time the governance of the native projects wasn't ideal, in the sense that it was just whoever at Basecamp had some time to work on it (mostly Jay Ohms - thanks Jay!!). It's exciting to see that Joe has been made a maintainer - well earned, and hopefully it results in some more issues being closed and PRs being shipped :)
- joemasilotti 4y agoTurbo Native in its current form requires a fair amount of iOS knowledge (and code!) to get working. I'm trying to fill that gap with my blog, workshops, and live streaming sessions. [1] But it's no excuse for what this library could be if we invest more time into it. In an ideal world the library handles 90% of the boilerplate required to make an iOS app work. I'm talking authentication, pushing/presenting controllers, sensible defaults for Path Configuration, etc. All the stuff that I have to add to every single Turbo Native app I work with. (12+ since I last counted.) Then devs can focus on differentiation and exciting features like push notifications, native integrations, fancy animations... while the core of the logic remains on the Rails app. I'm hoping that getting more maintainers (like me!) on the repo will help kickstart this. And I'm excited to see more interest on both HN and Twitter in the framework. [1] https://masilotti.com https://masilotti.com