Is it worth switching from ReactJS to React Native?
Web developers don’t need a lot of preparation to write mobile apps in React Native. But there are nuances that you should know about in advance. After all, mobile development and the web are two different worlds. Let’s talk about what website developers can face when they switch to React Native. A basic React Native course, if taken in intensive mode, can be mastered in a week.
Because this is a regular layout, exactly the same as in web development. The styles are practically the same. React Native is also React at its root, so the component approach and other principles were very familiar. It can be more difficult to master the navigation. In mobile development, there is no concept of a URL: you press a button and your whole screen changes with different animations under different conditions.
Plus these animations will be different depending on the platform. There are also some cross-platform nuances in conventional components. For example, the YouTube player on Android works natively because both are Google products. And on iOS – through a custom solution.
It is much easier to publish websites and web applications (hire reactjs developers): made, assembled, uploaded to the server, attached to the domain, and everything worked. It’s not that easy in mobile development. There are many Google Play and App Store requirements and other pitfalls that a developer should be aware of. Even the design of icons and the maximum size of the application, the download of which is not allowed via Wi-Fi, are regulated.
Despite these difficulties, those developers who are familiar with React.js will not take long to learn React Native. The basic course, if taken in intensive mode, can be mastered in a week. Add another week of practice to that, and that’s enough to make simple apps from scratch before publishing.
React Native is a very popular framework that has a huge developer community. Therefore, it is easy to find an answer to almost any question. And not just an answer, but a ready-made solution with examples.
It’s easier to get into mobile development with React Native. React Native makes it possible not to develop two different applications for Android and iOS, but to use the same code for both platforms. If you take Android and iOS, then each of them from the inside is implemented in its own way. But since using React Native, makes life easier by providing a shared library: you can do it through one component, not two.
If a web developer is interested in mobile development and wants to get into this direction relatively quickly, React Native is the ideal option. In native development, where you write in native languages for Android and iOS, the entry threshold is higher. You need to learn new languages, immerse yourself in them, learn how everything works, how it works. And when a person has some experience with React, and it knows how to at least typeset, it can already start working with React Native.
You can, for example, go to the official RN website, and from there start an empty project. Study it, look at the documentation, and code something: it will already work. At the initial stages, while you don’t know how to do anything at all, you can just make up the pages, and then ask someone to help impose the logic.
The layout of applications in React Native is very similar to the layout of web pages. Development in React Native takes place in a modular mode by layout with standard or custom components: button, text, view, flattest, scrollView. There are many materials and training courses on the Internet.
After studying them, anyone who has worked with JavaScript can start coding in React Native. If web developers decide to write applications in Native and master React (hire react native developer), they will quickly figure out the layout. It is very similar to the layout of web pages.
Navigation will be more difficult: there are specific components. You also have to tinker with push notifications. For example, if you want to display them in the foreground when the application is active. You need to additionally install the library. Animation is another puzzle for a newbie to Native. You can’t create it with CSS alone like you would for a web page.
You have to write everything in JS. When creating websites, you almost always know in advance how everything will work. Mobile development is more exciting in this regard. You constantly have to invent something, get around obstacles, come up with something new.