
Ask HN: Web vs. Mobile Build Time/Time-To-Feedback - poolside
Hi HN,<p>I&#x27;m a full-stack web and mobile developer who loves programming and making apps. I have a good amount of experience on both, but am newer to mobile dev.<p>Lately, I&#x27;ve been struggling with the compile time on iOS. E.g., If I implement a new animation feature or create a new model back by an API and want to experiment&#x2F;tweak those features, I have to constantly rebuild my app which kills my flow. If I do something similar on the web (front-end or server-side), I see the changes immediately.<p>Does anyone have any tips for lowering the time-to-feedback for iOS development? Is there any tools that can help with it? Any things on the horizon that look promising in this regard? Do you have this issue?<p>Another note on this topic: 1) I&#x27;ve made some hybrid apps with Phonegap and really enjoyed the experience because I could live-reload while developing, but I find those apps don&#x27;t feel the same as native apps.
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BorisEm
This is indeed an issue that can become quite frustrating, although you'll get
used to it pretty quickly.

Here are a few things that could help:

\- Swift Playgrounds[1] can be extremely useful to experiment with little
snippets of code.

\- On the simulator, you can slow down the animations (command + T)

\- Sometimes, I temporally add a UIButton to trigger the animation again...

The whole native vs. hybrid apps has been discussed extensively. As you
noticed, among other things, hybrid apps are not as snappy as their native
counterpart.

[1][https://developer.apple.com/swift/blog/?id=24](https://developer.apple.com/swift/blog/?id=24)

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ddv
Have you tried React Native? I remember seeing a demo that looked like it
supports hot-loading.

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seanwilson
I don't have any tools to recommend, but I can sympathise with what you said.
After working on web and PhoneGap/Corvoda apps, it feels like such a drag
working on projects that even only take a few seconds compile or update.

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nautical
My current app is in react-native .... way better thn programming in swift . I
done both and cant look back . It has hot-reloading.

