Unless you’re building a CPU/GPU intensive game that requires cranking 60 frames out per second without fail, chances are that React Native is going to be your go-to framework for app development!
React Native is an obvious success story for the major advantages it brings to the table - support across major platforms, purely native elements, single codebase, over-the-air updates, active community, abundant learning resources and the list goes on! React and Javascript play a pivotal role in this story - To lower the entry barrier, web developers can easily transfer their skills. And to sweeten the deal even more - a good chunk of React and Javascript libraries can be simply reused in React Native. This puts React Native easily ahead of competing frameworks 😄
Having said that, the learning curve is pretty steep for novice engineers. React Native has a layered architecture and can be daunting at the first glance. Learning Javascript, framework APIs and state management techniques is only the first step. In real world, you’ll come across interesting problems that tutorials and guides don’t usually cover. I’m hoping that this article will encourage newcomers to get their hands dirty and go beyond basic tutorials. I’m also hoping to set some realistic expectations around learning velocity, curve and complexity.
Let’s imagine that you’re working on a shiny new app at an emerging startup! But you’re totally new to React Native and its quirks. What are some of the things you should know before shipping the app? We’ll find out soon. But here’s the index in case you want to jump around -
Alright, so you’ve already started with a “Hello World” app and trying to understand what’s happening - going well. The trick to learning any new framework is to start playing with it. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll realise that you need to know more than just framework APIs to write production-grade code.
This is where knowing the underlying language plays a big role. There are practically unlimited resources to learn modern Javascript and React. And feeling lost is a totally valid reaction. Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew where to look and what to look for? Say no more 😎