React Native Perspectives
Article Summary
Ash Furrow, AJ Robidas, and Michelle Fernandez from Shopify reveal what actually happens when web, Android, and iOS developers learn React Native. Spoiler: their biggest fears weren't the real challenges.
Three Shopify developers with completely different backgrounds (web, Android, iOS) share their honest experiences learning React Native. They tackle the anxieties, surprises, and misconceptions that come with adopting cross-platform mobile development, offering practical insights for teams considering the switch.
Key Takeaways
- React Native has only 20 semantic building blocks versus 100+ in web
- TypeScript makes JavaScript development significantly more friendly for native developers
- Accessibility implementation requires more intentional effort than native or web
- Native module integration proved surprisingly painless for cross-platform apps
- Developer velocity increases dramatically with no compile step interrupting workflow
React Native delivers native-quality apps faster when teams combine web, Android, and iOS perspectives rather than relying on a single background.
About This Article
Shopify developers faced a messy React Native setup. Fresh projects came with over 1,000 packages in the node dependency tree, making it hard to know if all the tools actually worked well together compared to native platforms.
Shopify's React Native Foundations team created command-line wrappers around tools like adb, xcodebuild, and xcrun. Developers could now clone a repo and spin up simulators in Visual Studio Code without ever opening Android Studio or Xcode.
New team members got productive much faster. They had test apps running in simulators within minutes instead of spending hours wrestling with IDE configuration. Developers could work without waiting for compile steps to finish.
