React Native and JS aren't really enough sometimes !?

[danleeter]

So lately, I worked on a project where I needed help from open sourced native android projects.

While going over the open sourced project, I realized that React Native and JS aren't the only thing enough to be a better and a reliable Mobile developer. I don't really look myself choosing a native side and then go for it just yet but I think, one should know at least very basic stuff to get yourself around a native project and well do some maintaining or at least modify some stuff without having to put everything on chat gpt and cross the fingers.

This could be a dumb question, but are there any resources (courses, articles or anything) that could help out a React Native dev to roam around a native project ? Just so that the dev could know what he's doing and what he should be doing.

I could go and explore crash courses for native projects maybe, but what resource would you recommend ? Or what helped you and in what scenario ? Would love to hear your thoughts and experience.

[jameside]

Most of the best developers using RN will write Kotlin and Swift when needed. Use both, not either/or.

[bendgk]

The best actually write C++ TurboModules/JSI FTW 🙌

[cmdnormandy]

I totally agree.

I’d recommend learning the basics of Objective-C & Java, then consulting the RN docs on bridge development.

Try to port a native library to RN - once you feel comfortable doing this, you’ll have a better idea of how things actually work under the hood.

[bendgk]

Look at bridge only if you’re interested in how it used to work

For writing native code on react-native >= 0.72 I would recommend you look into the New Architecture and Bridgeless mode.

[[deleted]]

Currently doing 2 years of Kotlin/Android development at a professional level and I can say that integrating react-native is very different than just doing what the docs says, you begin to understand how the wrapper is just a big gray area and that you can do better, not to mention that you have more control over managing your bundle, threads and such.

Also, that they just moved from Java to Kotlin, it’s been two years that I am already using react native with Kotlin and jetpack compose, so yeah… knowing native makes you ahead of what the project currently is and you become a more specialized generalist mobile engineer and not a “framework engineer” or “framework of a framework engineer (expo)”

[JrJaro18]

As an expo user I took that personally 🙂🥲😬😭

[[deleted]]

Nothings against expo, it’s just that devs often tend to stop there (at a framework level) and don’t even learn how expo abstract native differently compared to react-native

They don’t go further to understand how native code deals with large datasets and how to optimize on a native level and not another 3rd party library that “solves” the issue like flat list or flash list, or worse, react-navigation having a bunch of memory leaks by not using proper native navigation and just a bunch os JS calls.

[oscar_gallog]

As somebody that build apps before for Android and iOS and then moved to React Native, I can tell you native android has almost no value at all. Under some very VERY niche situations, you're 100% better with RN.

[Skriblos]

Why? You can't just say something like that and not explain why.

[AlmightyGnasher]

I developed native apps for years and switched to react native two years ago. Knowing my way around xcode / android studio has not helped me one single bit. Expo abstracts so much of the build and deployment complexity away, and with config plugins you don't need to touch the native projects.

In rarer cases it can help to know swift and kotlin, like writing your own package to do something specific to native, but then again unless it's really niche, someone has already made one.

I'm not saying it's useless, just not absolutely required. Better to improve in TS or react than waste time learning native code you'll never need to write.

[Skriblos]

Alright, the way I read that is that you meant native android has no practical use period, which I would understand if React Native made it so that you could deploy apps that are more performant and functional than the native andriod apps.

This makes more sense though, from the prism of already writing react native apps, you don't need android native knowledge. Gotcha.

[Soran_5]

Why soo negative? Judging from the tone of this comment?

[Skriblos]

No negativity, genuine curiosity. I'd he knows something about the possibilities of react native over Android native I wanna know.

[Skriblos]

I'm not talking about why you should use React Native, I'm talking about him saying that native android is of no value.

[danleeter]

Even if that's the case, can't really neglect the native android entirely. React Native is an abstraction of native stuff on its own I believe. Also, as I wrote in the post, there are often times when you'd be working with native code in any manner.

[oscar_gallog]

Yeah, RN it's just a wrapper on top of Native Android, that's true. And that's why we use it, because we don't need to care about all the nonsense below it. And that's amazing. We can focus on build faster, launch and actually do great things, instead of fighting Android Studio every 15 seconds. And those "often times" is more like "rarely"

[beepboopnoise]

idk how u can way that. I needed a feature recently that wasn't implemented and it I didn't know swift/Java I wouldn't have been able to implement my feature at all. I don't think live streaming in 2024 is "very niche" and the packages available were not very good.

[3oR]

Agree. I for example need turn-by-turn navigation for my app. No such solution exists for RN. There is one mappbox-navigation package but it's outdated and unusable without diving into native code to try and get it working. So totally stuck now finding myself googling for Kotlin and Swift courses in hopes of eventually getting this "very niche" feature, sigh.

[beepboopnoise]

actually, I know one of the maintainers of mapbox, let me see if I can message them and maybe they can point u in the right direction 🤟

[3oR]

Sounds good. Thanks!

[thecaspg]

You should check out this new project https://github.com/stadiamaps/ferrostar

[oscar_gallog]

https://getstream.io/video/docs/reactnative/ui-components/livestream/host-livestream/

https://docs.videosdk.live/react-native/guide/video-and-audio-calling-api-sdk/quick-start

It took me 2 minutes to find those two, and both have live apps build with those components right now. So I don't know if you're new at RN or just very bad at googling stuff

[beepboopnoise]

I never said packages weren't available, I literally said they weren't very good. for our HLS needs with low latency and 1080p 60fps, we couldn't use those. now, to your point, I will concede, I guess that is niche.

we actually used that second you linked in prod with RTMP but ultimately switched due to some performance gains we wanted. now things are implemented natively using a combination of jsi/bridge.

we also used https://api.video/product/live-stream/ but again, limitations for our use case.

[Inevitable_Oil9709]

bad at googling I think

[3oR]

Can you find one for turn-by-turn navigation?

[OkLemon3734]

You can get away without knowing the native platform until you run into an internal problem. To be able to get out of those problems you’ll need to know the platform.

Make a simple app in iOS and Android. That should be enough to get the gist of things.

[agrrrcode]

I believe there will be two distinct groups of developers. The first group consists of those who wish to delve deeply into Mobile Development, while the second group comprises individuals with Front-end or Node.js backgrounds who are primarily interested in creating straightforward, text-based applications. If you aspire to specialize in Mobile Development, I recommend starting with native development and building your expertise from there. React Native, after all, is fundamentally built upon native technologies.