React Native technology - what is worth knowing?

From year to year, we are increasingly faced with the task of creating a mobile application. A wide audience, consisting of both iOS and Android smartphone users, does not make it easy for us. In addition, the budget cannot be stretched. This is where React Native comes in, having a wide knowledge base and being already a mature solution.

React Native is a kind of programming platform that is just a framework for building an application. It was created by the well-known company Facebook, with the aim of speeding up the process of creating mobile applications. What does he allow us to do? Thanks to React Native, we can create applications for iOS and Android platforms using the popular programming language - JavaScript. How can this be implemented? All we need to do is write some JavaScript code, which will result in a mobile application that will contain native elements for separate systems, that is, for iOS and Android. How it works? To work, it uses the so-called bridges, thanks to which it can translate JavaScript into certain native elements.

How did React Native technology spread?

It happened thanks to the creator of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg. He was trying to find a suitable software solution for his work, as he noticed that Facebook users mainly use the mobile web version of Facebook. Ten years ago, in 2012, he admitted at a press conference that the previous solution, HTML5, didn't live up to expectations. He also stated that it was one of his company's biggest strategic failures. He also said that he hopes that in the near future he and his team will come up with a solution that solves this problem that they have been struggling with for some time. Three years later, Jordan Walk, one of the developers working for Facebook, came up with a solution that could generate certain user interface elements that run on the iOS system. To do this, he used the aforementioned JavaScript language. It was a huge breakthrough in the app development industry. After months of hard work, the first version of the so-called React.js appeared. It was published in 2015. At the same time, Facebook also confirmed that it uses React.js technology in its products.

Advantages and disadvantages of React Native

A big advantage of building apps using React Native technology is having only one code for more than one platform. Thanks to this, you can even go beyond operating systems such as Android or iOS. Using this solution saves a lot of time and money. In addition, to create applications, you need only one good team of developers who will base their work on a stable framework, which is, of course, React.js.

So if React Native is such an amazing and sensational solution, why isn't it used in every possible project? We can't forget that React.js is only efficient in terms of user interface. What does this mean? The written code of this application is not converted into a specific native code and interacts with the smartphone's native interface. Keep in mind that in order to create certain parts of the application, which may include connecting camera functions, you need to enter a piece of code using native technology, and then build a bridge whose task will be to connect elements created in JavaScript with native ones. code.

When should you choose React Native technology?

A great time when we can use React Native technology is the need to create a simple application with time constraints. A good example is a mobile application created specifically for the fair. At such moments, the company intends to present its products using a mobile application. Therefore, it can be responsible for collecting ideas about new projects in a given company, or it can be a simple tool for a one-time marketing campaign. Why is it so? React Native technology allows us to write approximately 70 percent of the total code. However, we must not forget that we also need to build bridges between native elements and JavaScript itself. As you might guess, the simpler the application and interface, the more common code you can use. As a result, along with the complexity of the application, the number of code fragments that you will have to write yourself will grow.

It is worth remembering the importance of appropriate selection of technological solutions to your capabilities and needs. If we are dealing with a simple application that will not be improved in the future or is just an advertising tool, it is worth betting on React Native technology and saving a lot of time and money. However, you should pay attention to the large number of possibilities offered by the native API, that is, a set of solutions through which two different applications can interact with each other. We can give an example of a restaurant app and Google Maps here. It is possible that in some situations the amount of shared code will be small and much more work will be spent on building bridges. At such moments, it is worth focusing on native programming.