Why has react -native became so popular?
After being enlightened about the fact that hybrid apps are the next big jump in Application development,I finally decided to check out some of the ways u can actually develop an app can be made hybrid.
Hybrid apps — Apps that can have the properties of both native and web .
As I dived into world of Hybrid Apps ,I found one framework in particular to be very popular among developer ,i.e.,React Native . React -Native is developed by Facebook which extends from React Java script library. Being previously have worked with java-script and also having an amateur knowledge about Android(Java ) ,I thought it was the perfect start for me.
After playing around with react-native for the past 4 months, my thoughts on why this Java — script library is such a go-to for hybrid app development can be summarized into ….
A good start for web developers
Being a fellow java-script enthusiast , i was really excited to start using react native.There are lots of similarities in react lib js and react native. The primary being the same JSX/JS6 syntax. The fat arrow functions and the way the the components are created and exported are the same .
But as much i was loving the similarities .i couldn’t help to notice the differences as well. The primary being the lack of knowledge about the various components being used which becomes bothersome as they are quite a lot of them. Other problem for web developers are not knowing about the activity life-cycle, no use of CSS for styling and the no use of previous React library that renders any kind of HTML,CSS or SVG. Still some of the react library can be used which includes Redux, Axios,etc.
Developer Friendly
In most articles that have been published they have praised React native’s developer friendliness . It is fairly simple to start up with via a command line e and within 4 lines of code u can get a fully workable project which can projected on to a emulator or onto your own device via EXPO.
The concept of hot-reloading makes it way easier to visualize code changes which previously took around minutes to save changes in previous versions of android-studio.
The best part about about this frame work is its elaborate documentation ,which is illustrated with examples and you can play around with those on an online platform.
JUST FOR THE LOOKS
React -native has its many pro’s but unlike the native development which has it’s very own database management system ,React-native has none.You need to have an External source for managing data.
But having an external system or database doesn’t always mean that its a con.For this very reason developers have chosen this framework over native development because there is no need for having an external system separately for the web-page and the app.
More-over to increase the productivity we have various asynchronous function call and other external library such as axios which helps in making us making http request to GET or POST data.
NO MORE DULL UI’s
The easy flow react native makes it way simpler to design as well as execute Complex UI’s within hours. The components are so easy to build that you wouldn’t feel any difference in between developing apps in the native fore ground or in a Web environment.
Animations are smoother to implement now that Animated Component has been more refined .Gesture are easy to read with PanResponder which replaced the previous Gesture Library.Styling in react has no bounds and you can pour all your imagination with enough time and effort.And if you are A bit Lazy like me, you can always check out the NATIVE BASE library which has plenty pretty looking Ui components.
TO wrap up,React native has been pleasant to work with and also the developing speed is way beyond any other frameworks that i have come across. The freedom that its gives its to their developer , makes App development even more fun.
The community associated with React-Native is always active and it is ever growing . I have been guided by a lot of them on the do’s and don’t and offer to provide back , so feel free free to ask .
Don’t forget to give any feedback or point any mistakes. It is my very first article and i hope that there will more coming soon. Share any thoughts on what can be my next topic.
//Also Have a Good Day
