A React Native Retrospective

A talk detailing some of the pain points of React Native given at React Conf 2016

Transcript

1. A React Native Retrospective Eric Sauter
2. I think React Native is awesome.
3. A React Native Retrospective React Native Sucks…
5. A React Native Retrospective React Native Sucks… React Native Sucks… a little bit
7. 7 Let’s “build” an app (in 3.5 minutes) to see what I’m talking about.
8. react-native init JSFatigueEliminator
9. JS compilation Bundling Asset loading ES6 and beyond Chrome debugger Instant reloading and more… Flexbox
10. Start building quickly without worrying about configuration.
11. Image MapView Navigator TextInput View ListView DatePickerIOS Text Animated AppState TabBarIOS Alert Linking CameraRoll WebView and more…
12. But we need more!
13. Not a problem…
14. Video Facebook Login $$$ Stripe Form $$$
15. But we’ve hit a roadblock…
16. Oh s*&@ we’re going to have to open Xcode…
17. Objective C Swift iOS SDK
18. Provisioning profiles, code signing, and certificates?!?!
19. Man, this is starting to get complicated…
20. JavaScript ES6/7 Babel npm Xcode Objective-C Swift Java iOS SDKs Android SDKs CSS Flux/Redux Jest/ Mocha XCTest Flow ESLint React Node Chrome Debugger
21. We’re going to need to read some documentation.
22. Easy enough…
23. Easy enough… don’t actually use this
24. Hmm…
25. Maybe the docs are wrong? Maybe we need to update RN?
26. Versioned docs would really help.
27. Versioned docs would really help.
28. Look’s like we need to upgrade RN…
29. …welp, TextInputs don’t seem to work properly anymore.
30. Luckily, there are some awesome resources to reach out to!
31. Stack Overflow Reactflux on Discord Product Pains Existing issues
32. No luck, let’s open an issue.
33. Yikes
34. Some issues look like this:
35. People (like me) don’t always keep up with their issues.
36. The result is wasted time and long-running issues/PRs.
37. Github Issue Templates!
38. We’ll just punt on this feature for now. We need to release!
39. The App Store
40. Submitting to the App Store is tedious.
41. Submitting to the App Store is slow.
42. Submitting to the App Store is a Hail Mary.
43. Tools to the rescue! Exponent CodePush
44. RN Android is out now. We’ll have an Android app in no time…
45. LOL! Not so fast… (Repeat slides 13-40 and add some complaints about Android/Java)
46. 30 seconds left… What’s your point?
47. React Native is awesome.
48. We are spoiled by it, so issues are exacerbated.
49. Many issues are not unique to React Native.
50. Contribute and help make it even better!
51. Don’t complain…
52. Don’t complain… unless you’re going to help make things better.
53. React Native is getting better daily.
54. Let’s keep working together to: 1. Identify the problems.
55. Let’s keep working together to: 1. Identify the problems. 2. Build better solutions.
56. Let’s keep working together to: 1. Identify the problems. 2. Build better solutions. 3. And make it even more awesome.
57. Eric Sauter www.fixt.co Thank you! @TheEricSauter