React-Native :My New idea for App development.

App Development is probably one of the most popular skills in today's programming world. Now, as good as it sounds, we all are quite familiar that acquiring this "skill" is not a walk in a park. Compared to Web-Development, which back in my 9th grade I learned on Notepad, this one requires Android Studio! (not considering Swift for now) No offense to my fellow Android developers but working my way around that software has been a pain in the ass (excuse the expression). React-Native provides easy solutions to all these problems that might stand as an obstacle in the way of a web-developer, like me, who wants to have some experience in the field of App development.

What is React-Native?

React-Native is a cool library, that allows you to build mobile apps, that are indistinguishable from any another app developed by Android or Swift. It is owned and managed by Facebook and is a rather awesome tool as you will see further in this post. React-Native allows one to use their web development skills to build mobile apps, which will run not just on Android but also on iOS. It build cross-platform mobile apps that won’t be any different from other apps that are on your cellphone. Also, it allows you to write your code from any text-editor.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Cross-platform development: You can build apps for Android as well as for iOS by React-Native.
• Build Native apps: Apps built by React-Native are no different from other apps on your device.
• Simple to learn and use: It uses simple tags <> as there are in HTML. Styling of elements is also pretty easy.
• Build from any text editor: Choose the text-editor that suits you, Atom, Sublime-Text, Notepad++, Visual Studio, Vim any would do.
• Recompiling is easy: Android Studio creates a simulator which lets you view your app as you make it, the problem is, that simulator costs your system a lot of memory. React-Native lets you view your app side by side on your Mobile. You just need to hit the Save button on your laptop and the changes will be made instantly to the app on your mobile!
• Maintained by Facebook: Facebook owns it! Now if you can trust this community with all your personal-life's info, you can trust them enough to keep a standard in the work they build.

Cons

• Not verified by Google or Apple: Though you can publish apps on Google Play or App Store without any conflict and people can use it without any trouble, but the framework, React-Native, is not supported by these communities as they do their respective Android and Swift frameworks.
• Need to know ReactJS: Now throughout this article I have been mentioning how easy it is to work with React-Native and now you'd say "WHAT?! We gotta learn ReactJS too now?". Yea, i cannot deny that you should know this n' that's of ReactJS before you step into React-Native, but then ReactJS is also popular these days and if you are into web development by any means you certainly cannot deny have hearing about it and how good it is for building UI.

Where to start learning from?

I suggest you to do a bit research on React-Native and then dive into learning it, and also it is preferred to have ReactJS as the prerequisite. For ReactJS you can take the course which I'm currently taking here. The course content and the instructor itself are pretty awesome and certainly will develop your interest and knowledge in this language. For React-Native as well i prefer the course provided by the same instructor here. You can check out the preview videos provided by them to see all and more about ReactJS or Native. Facebook even has it's own React GitHub Repository.

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