React Native is a framework established by Facebook that allows you to design native mobile apps for iOS and Android with a single JavaScript codebase.
In 2012 Mark Zuckerberg remarked, “The biggest error we made as a company was investing too much on HTML5 as opposed to native”. React Native was announced during Facebook’s React.js conference in February 2015 and open-sourced in March 2015.
With the growing popularity of React Native and the increasing number of famous mobile apps (such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Uber, Discord, SoundCloud, Skype…) that have been partially or totally rewritten in React Native,the question arises: Should mobile developers use React Native for mobile development instead of going full native with Java or Swift? Looking for Hire iOS Developers for your business needs.
Before we start comparing these languages and frameworks, let‘s first explore how React Native produces a mobile app. React Native framework leverages React.js library in order to construct a genuine native mobile app. The major distinction between React and React Native is that the latter employs native components instead of web components to generate the user interface, along with JSX — a syntax that is used to incorporate XML with JavaScript.
Codebase
React Native offers a single JavaScript codebase for 2 different platforms. This means that it is not simply easier to maintain the app by having the same development process for all platforms and reusing the same code, but it also takes less resources, because there is no need for separate iOS and Android teams.
However, this benefit comes with a cost. It is well-known that Android and iOS have differing design principles. Human Interface Guideline for iOS and Material Design for Android have a big share of differences, so if the project requirements dictate that these specific OS requirements should be followed for each native platform, React Native developer will need to write platform-specific code, which defeats the purpose of the single codebase. This might be a bigger issue when it comes to iOS, because Apple often upgrades and deprecates their technologies which can be hard to follow, while Android apps generally have more control of the system and are permitted more freedom.
However, if it is OK for the app to look the same on both iOS and Android, then adopting React Native will drastically speed up the development and maintenance procedures.
It should be mentioned nevertheless that even with the factor of being allowed to develop an app that looks the same on both platforms, it is still impossible to write an app without writing any platform-specific code. Some components will just look fantastic on iOS and horrible on Android and vice versa, which elevates the requirement for fine-tuning those specific scenarios. Still, even with platform-specific UI in the code, having even 30 percent of shared codebase is substantial money and time save in the long term.
The programming language \sReact Native is based on React.js, which is written in JavaScript. This is a huge advantage when it comes to the fact that JavaScript is such an extensive and popular language that it’s quite impossible to find a programmer who hasn’t used it at some time in their career.
What is the disadvantage of utilizing JavaScript though?
Well… it’s JavaScript.
While Java and Swift/Objective-C are strongly-typed, compiled languages, JavaScript is interpreted and generally considered an untyped language. This means that your variables can be anything at any point and a compiler is not going to help you, so if you’re not extra attentive while building your programs, the floor is paved for Javascript horrors to happen. When true native apps have more control of the variables and the logic of the app is more predictable, JavaScript relies on the programmer’s experience, Lint tools and automatic tests. Does this indicate that JavaScript applications contain more errors by definition? No. But it does imply that you might spend a lot more time searching for the app-breaking error that your compiler would have gotten for you in Java or Swift.
Still, it is a reality that JavaScript remains one of the most widely-used programming languages in the world, and the maturity of the JavaScript ecosystem suggests that finding a React Native developer for a project should normally be straightforward. Looking for hire iPhone app developer in London for your business needs.
Hot reloading and Live reloading
Anyone who has ever worked with XCode or Eclipse / Android Studio understands how long and painful build time can be. This can especially be unpleasant if you are working on a feature that is numerous screens away from the launch screen. This makes even trivial operations like as changing a view color or altering a label text incredibly time-consuming.
React Native’s solution for this problem is called hot reloading, which keeps the app running and stores the state (the data and the screen you’re on), only injecting the changes that are being made in the code. While being far from flawless, this feature works well for most of the normal use cases, saving a lot of important development time.
Even without using hot reloading, app build time is substantially faster using React Native than on native iOS and Android, and live reloading mechanism may be used to automatically reload the app every time the code is modified, without having to create it manually every single time.
User Interface
React Native’s approach to organizing UI is Flexbox, which is already quite popular in online development and enables the developer to design a flexible web or mobile UI very easily. As such, it is a technology that challenges Android’s XML / Constraint layout method, or iOS’s Storyboard / XIB / Coding using UI frameworks such as Neon approach.
One big advantage that native mobile provides though is that you have access to all the native APIs such as Camera, Touch ID and GPS, as well as capabilities for developing animations and rich user interface. There is no intermediary layer and you are free to take advantage of everything the mobile platform has to offer. React Native does not excel at creating complex UI and animations. It does have the Animated API which is a good solution, but is still far behind the native capabilities.
React by default re-renders a component every time its state changes. If applied effectively, this approach for developing UI is superior. However, if not handled effectively this might be a source for needless re-renders. Worth noting is that, in a single-threaded JavaScript environment, performance difficulties could develop and you need to be extra careful while building your UI.
Also, some complex mobile features are simply best done in native. One example of this is Apple’s ARKit for producing augmented reality experiences. Another example are apps that are particularly platform specialized, such as apps for watchOS or tvOS.
Also read: DISCOVER WHAT A WEB DEVELOPER CAN DO
