I was a speaker at iOS Developer Thailand‘s meetup last week and my topic is quite interesting, it’s about React Native. That’s draw a lot of interesting from Native developer. So I thought it’d great if I summed all stories I spoke here.
Thank you Mr. Bank and his crew for invitation me to this event.
And if you’re interesting in other session in this meetup, the meetup also has Redux – Bring Web Architecture to Mobile by Mr. M and Continuous Delivery with Fastlane by Mr. Somkiat
Sum up: React Native – What?, Why?, How?
React Native is a fresh new thing for Native Developer. So l clarified all myths here. Separate in 3 topics, What is it? Why do we have to use it? and How to use it?
What is React Native?
- Idea extension from its ancestor Web framework, React
- Use similar React’s concept to control Native UI in Mobile application development
Why do I have to use React Native? or don’t?
As a starter, you might confuse about React Native. For a great example, “Do I have to use React Native?” or “Is it better than Swift or Objective-C?”
So I focused on iOS Native Developer and Web Developer in this part.
Advantage of React Native
- Support iOS and Android
- Get Native’s performance in almost part
- Good for Web Developer
- Easy to learn (Need ES6 & JSX experiene)
- Provides Native APIs and Native UI components (But not everything in Native got covered now, You can create it by yourself if you want)
Disadvantage of React Native
- Still young (and yes, we still have bugs)
- iOS in mid 2015
- Android in September, 2015
- Document is hard to use for newbie, less explanation, StackOverflow is a resource
- Not everything in Native got covered now (but you can create it by yourself if you want)
How to start with React Native?
Setting up
- Node JS
- Flow
- Watchman
- Sublime Text 3 or Atom is good to start
More, if you want iOS
- Xcode
- iOS Simulator
More, if you want Android
- Android SDK
- Android Emulator (React Native suggested Genymotion)
You needs these skills to go well:
- HTML, CSS
- JavaScript
- ES6
- JSX
- Basic using of Xcode
- Basic using of Android Studio
Demo
I showed the basic React Native project’ structure for Native developer in this event. You can find all projects I demo in the list below:
- Demo: AlertIOS, ActionSheetIOS, and UIManager
- UIExplorer, by React Native (in Example folder)
- Assemblies
Slide
I used this slide as a part of my speak. The video recorded from the crew might fills my words, which I talked about the 3rd battle of cross-platform war.