React Native App: How PromoFarma Can Develop Cross-Platform Apps Faster
At PromoFarma by DocMorris, we migrated our app to React Native a few months ago, and we are super excited at the impressive results we have gotten in such a short time!
The truth is that we decided to use React Native since it is a technology that is JavaScript based (one of our main languages at the company, so that implied a shorter learning time), however, it then compiles in the two native languages. To be precise, we actually use TypeScript which makes types and code management easier. It means using a single codebase that is compiled into native code for each platform, which means that the resulting application is indistinguishable from one built using platform-specific tools.
React Native is basically React with some native components and it provides a responsive user interface that reduces load time significantly. It was created in 2015 by Facebook and has since built a large community due to its ease of use, versatility, and performance. It ́s also much faster and cheaper to build apps with this technology instead of building two different ones in two different languages!
One of the biggest advantages of React Native is that it allows developers to write code once and deploy it on different platforms: iOS, Android, and the web. And although we at PromoFarma don ́t use it for the web (we have another project for that) it is a great advantage.
Migrating to React Native: Benefits and Challenge
Another one of the benefits of using React Native is that it allows the incorporation of third-party plug-ins, library tools, and APIs, so the dependencies are also similar to any other JavaScript technology such as Vue or React. It is compatible with Redux as well, great for managing the application state, React Navigation or Expo: a tool specifically designed for app development and testing.
It ́s also a declarative programming model, and that allows developers to describe the user interface of their application in a simple, concise manner. That makes the code more maintainable and easier to write, which allows us to focus more on the logic of the application without worrying so much about the interface.
One of the main challenges React Native presents is that it can be difficult sometimes to achieve the same level of performance and native feel as a fully native application. This has to do with the fact that it relies on a bridge to communicate between JavaScript code and native code, and we all know that some things are lost in translation.
Although it is a fairly new technology and is therefore evolving constantly, it has a large community already and very powerful documentation. So, it ́s not hard to keep up with the latest developments and best practices.
Some parts of the development are a bit difficult, such as implementing rich push notifications or some SEO tasks as well as some dependency updates which affected us negatively.
Therefore, since our launch, we have been iterating the application to make it even better and we work every day to fix small bugs or iterate stories to make them as perfect as possible.
Our UX expert, Sandra Doblas, is making a huge effort to investigate and compromise between the UX needs and the development difficulties to ensure our app is great without making our job impossible. Also, Ana Gómez, our PO, and our QA team review daily what we need to develop in order to achieve our goals.
Team Efforts and Inclusivity at PromoFarma by DocMorris
I joined the team once the application was already launched and I had never worked with React Native before, but being comfortable with JavaScript and React, I could engage quite fast and deliver tasks quickly. I am super happy to be part of this team, it is super easy to work with my colleagues and we have a lot of fun in all our meetings before getting back to hard work.
Seeing as women make up only 25% of the tech workforce in general, it is delightful to find a place that is so inclusive. It can be difficult sometimes to be the only woman on the mobile app team (in spite the impostor syndrome). However, our team is composed of so many great people in addition to the tech team (PO, TechLead, QA, etc.) I always feel supported and appreciated at PromoFarma. This is one of the reasons I encourage any women developers to sign up for any job offerings at PromoFarma, it is most definitely an environment where anyone can feel comfortable and grow their careers.
By Clara Sánchez Peraire
