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Ask HN: Why was React Native created?

by berzniz on 3/28/15, 9:36 AM with 4 comments

Was React Native created for making it easy for JS devs to develop for iOS? or for iOS devs to build apps more easily? Is it a path to a future cross platform native apps?

I'm both an iOS and web developer.

I fully understand what React (for the web) is trying to solve: UI's are hard and treating them as state machine makes it easier to keep the UI consist ant. The web version is also easily debuggable in the same tools you debug your regular JS code.

React Native is odd. It's not written in Swift/Obj-C and is not debuggable using the same tools we use XCode (and debugging is a big part of what we do to optimize mobile apps).

What are your thoughts?

  • by bluerail on 3/28/15, 1:00 PM

    I think it's a mixture of both. Getting web devs to dip their toes into mobile development and vice-versa. I really don't see a reason for someone not to pick-up something that will give the best(not-exactly) of both worlds..

    Think of the potential if a single language can be used to build apps in multiple platforms - web, mobile, desktop(node-webkit).. I think the language that currently satisfies this is JS and React-native is yet another extension to it.

  • by cat9 on 3/28/15, 9:54 AM

    It's not a replacement for Swift/Obj-C, it's a replacement for PhoneGap.

    Android support is due Soon(TM). It just launched with was ready.

    https://github.com/facebook/react-native/pull/271

  • by ksherlock on 3/28/15, 5:04 PM

    39% of React Native is Objective C. (Or Java, eventually, for Android). Beyond simple things (or for better performance) you'll still need and want native views/modules in Swift/Objective C.

  • by serve_yay on 3/28/15, 11:14 AM

    I recommend their intro videos.