5 years of DEVeloper EXperience in React Native

Abstract

Stating that React Native’s mission is ambitious is an understatement. The promise of building applications for basically every platform is HARD. After using the framework for five years I think that React Native is superb. I love it. However, I must admit that is not flawless. I started using React Native in production in 2017. I will share with you what happened to the framework during my long journey. All the joys and the pains, what it definitely sucked and what makes me say today ‘after all it was the right choice’. I’ll go through practical cases of apps that are used by hundreds of thousands of people, the mistakes you can avoid (because I already did it) and the A-HA! moments I had. I will walk you through React Native improvements during the years and what is the state of the art as today for developing an app starting from React. Spoiler alert: is not as simple as running a web app on a browser but it’s been dramatically improving year after year. At the end you will be able to start with the right tools and evaluate the new ones, thanks to my experience after all this years of developing with this framework.