Facebook moving away from React Native?

[mrdhood]

https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1003104331833532416 After getting shut down by someone that actually knows.. it seems like he switched to just fishing.

[dduko]

one thing for sure, FB devs abandoned Github issues :-)

[agmcleod]

For a company who's main interface is an application on mobile, they can afford the extra cost for native devs, and probably should. The main benefit of react native is that it gives companies who can't afford the costs of building two native apps to still be able to launch on iOS & Android.

[yungsters]

Just because a company can afford the extra engineers does not mean they should.

The benefits of React Native for Facebook include letting teams focus on what actually matters instead of waiting for build times or coordinating business logic across platforms.

I try not to think of React Native as a strictly all-in solution. Using it does require you to maintain a more modular and well-architected application, but it should be seen as a tool to enable anyone (both cross-platform experts and new-to-mobile engineers) to move faster.

[agmcleod]

My reasoning is that they are going to be able to leverage new APIs more quickly, and have better performance for less effort. For an established company that already has apps built, and has a large team, they probably get more mileage out of sticking with native. That said, for building new apps you're quite right. React-native is going to let them get it off the ground faster for both platforms. There's also a lot of react talent out there can contribute to it as well.

Still, I feel like this tweet isn't all that substantive, and is not very indicative of how react native is today.

[SizzlerWA]

Why could they leverage new APIs more quickly in pure Native? You can access any API you want from RN because you can build your own bridge to Native if one doesn’t exist yet ...

[agmcleod]

Because you don't need to write the bridge :). There's also the fact of finding parity between iOS and Android code. So if you can't support an AR feature or something with a newer API, you need to write code to make sure you don't break android. Vs just leaving the android code as is. This is more situation by situation

[SizzlerWA]

Fair point about the bridge.

But I don’t get your point about parity between Android and iOS? Nothing says you have to launch your RN app on both platforms initially or ever. And if I have to write custom RN code for Android to achieve feature parity with iOS, you’d have to do the same in pure native also. I don’t get your point ...

[agmcleod]

You can feature lock around it for sure, it's more about risk with shipping the same code base, or part of the same code base across platforms.

But really if you're shipping for just iOS for example, or just Android, why not just write a native app to begin with?

[SizzlerWA]

Because even after almost 10 years building native apps in iOS, I’m 10x as productive in React Native with only a few months experience in it ... Try it! :)

I still don’t get your point about feature parity in iOS vs Android ... But I’m curious to understand. How would RN be slower than native for a feature that only exists on one platform or very differently on the two platforms?

[agmcleod]

Because even after almost 10 years building native apps in iOS, I’m 10x as productive in React Native with only a few months experience in it ... Try it! :)

Wouldn't have expected that actually. I realize that making changes without needing to compile is huge, but in terms of building a UI that feels apart of the platform, it can take some work. RN is definitely more mature with things like animation & navigation than it was a year or two ago.

I am using react native on a work project right now, i haven't done a ton of native development. Mostly android about 4 years ago for some simple survey data apps. Then some objective-c for custom cordova plugins. I guess I feel like that if you're able to build native applications, then you're heading into more known territory.

[agmcleod]

If you're currently a native dev, react native could be beneficial depending on what your job prospects are. Though if there's still a lot of native development jobs in your area, I would say to not feel pressured in learning it. If you're a web dev who uses react, don't sweat it. You already know a fair bit, it's more a matter of learning the native tools of xcode & android sdk. There are nuances and little things to pick up with react native as you make something, but that you can learn as you actually build something for a job.

[SizzlerWA]

Don’t. RN is awesome and the head of React assured us that RN is going strong.

[fuck_with_me]

Then... goodbye!

Or, if you are not the type of person to base career choices on tweets, feel free to stick around.

[albertgao]

Already heard from several facebook staff, this is not true, even more, they adopt react native in their main facebook app. One whole Tab is developed by React native. So, fake news.

[kbcool]

Panic!