Getting Started with React Native

#javascript #webdev #react #reactnative

React Native and react ecosystem

To be really clear react is a Javascript library for building User interfaces, ReactDOM.render(...) adds web support otherwise React itself is platform-independent.

So what's react-native? It is a collection of special react components that are compiled to native app widgets. It acts as a bridge between Javascript and native platform code(java...).

Hence React + React Native = Real Native Mobile Apps (Android+IOS)

For Example

function comp() {
  return (
    <View>
      <Text> Hello !!! </Text>
    </View>
  );
}

Note: here View and Text are special components provided by react native and hence compiled into native widgets but the syntax is still react.

How React Native works :-

Now since we have a introduction about react native now we can start working on react native. There are two ways to start working with react native

Expo Client CLI = For beginners
React Native CLI (barebone) = For advance people

Expo is an extra wrapper on React native CLI which makes react native development workflow easy and effective. To get started visit https://docs.expo.io/ and follow the expo documentation.
There is one more special feature of the expo, even if your system doesn't have good ram then you can go to https://snack.expo.io/ and start creating react native apps on your browser itself and you even don't need a mobile phone. With that said go ahead and setup expo and react native so that we can start coding apps.

Note: this is the first blog from my upcoming blog series on React Native and aiming to strengthen React Native community. So if you already know react native contribute with me or if you are new show some love.