

Ask HN: Why was React Native created? - berzniz

Was React Native created for making it easy for JS devs to develop for iOS? or for iOS devs to build apps more easily? Is it a path to a future cross platform native apps?<p>I&#x27;m both an iOS and web developer.<p>I fully understand what React (for the web) is trying to solve: UI&#x27;s are hard and treating them as state machine makes it easier to keep the UI consist ant. The web version is also easily debuggable in the same tools you debug your regular JS code.<p>React Native is odd. It&#x27;s not written in Swift&#x2F;Obj-C and is not debuggable using the same tools we use XCode (and debugging is a big part of what we do to optimize mobile apps).<p>What are your thoughts?
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bluerail
I think it's a mixture of both. Getting web devs to dip their toes into mobile
development and vice-versa. I really don't see a reason for someone not to
pick-up something that will give the best(not-exactly) of both worlds..

Think of the potential if a single language can be used to build apps in
multiple platforms - web, mobile, desktop(node-webkit).. I think the language
that currently satisfies this is JS and React-native is yet another extension
to it.

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cat9
It's not a replacement for Swift/Obj-C, it's a replacement for PhoneGap.

Android support is due Soon(TM). It just launched with was ready.

[https://github.com/facebook/react-
native/pull/271](https://github.com/facebook/react-native/pull/271)

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ksherlock
39% of React Native is Objective C. (Or Java, eventually, for Android). Beyond
simple things (or for better performance) you'll still need and want native
views/modules in Swift/Objective C.

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serve_yay
I recommend their intro videos.

