React Native Radio is under new management! In today's episode, the new hosts talk about the relaunch of React Native Radio and the state of React Native.
React Native Radio is under new management! In today's episode, the new hosts talk about the relaunch of React Native Radio and the state of React Native.
This episode brought to you by Infinite Red! Infinite Red is a premier React Native design and development agency located in the USA. With five years of React Native experience and deep roots in the React Native community (hosts of Chain React and the React Native Newsletter), Infinite Red is the best choice for your next React Native app.
Show Notes:
Read our blog post announcement in Red Shift: https://shift.infinite.red/relaunching-the-react-native-radio-podcast-716aa5f9310e
We're working on a transcript of this episode and all future episodes! Stay tuned for that.
Want to get to know the new hosts of React Native Radio? Follow them on Twitter!
Make sure to subscribe on any the major podcasting platforms (search for "React Native Radio"). And follow us on Twitter at our new handle, @reactnativerdio.
Todd Werth:
Welcome to the React Native Radio podcast, brought to you by Infinite Red.
Todd Werth:
Episode 174, The Relaunch.
Jamon Holmgren:
Hey everyone, welcome to the brand new, Relaunch, rebranded and re-ignited React Native Radio podcast. I'm your host Jamon Holmgren and with me today are three awesome co-hosts, uh, I'll introduce them. Robin Heinze, how you doing Robin?
Robin Heinze:
I'm doing great Jamon, glad to be here.
Jamon Holmgren:
Awesome. And we have Adhithi Ravichandran. How're you doing Adhithi?
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Doing well Jamon.
Jamon Holmgren:
Great. And last but not least of course, uh, we have Harris Robin Kalash. How're you doing Harris?
Harris Robin Kalash:
I'm doing good, thanks.
Jamon Holmgren:
First off, let me just kinda talk a little bit. Let's talk about our backgrounds a little bit for the audience who may not have heard us. If my voice sounds familiar, that may be because I was a host for a little while in January of React Native Radio. For those whohaven't heard my story, I, uh, I started coding when I was 12, uh, I started doing some QBasic, I, I made little games and stuff like that. I've always been fascinated by computers. Um, and a, a math teacher in middle school, uh, recognized this and gave me a, a book and said, "Hey, Jamon, here's, uh, here's a book on Basic." She, she kind of understood that, "Okay, he, he likes computers, maybe this could be a direction he could go." Uh, very, very insightful, I guess.
Jamon Holmgren:
And I- so I started making little Mad Libs and things like that. Um, and then all through high school, I was making, making little games in Qbasic and exploring, I did a little bit of C++, my, my parents, um, didn't understand it at all. They were, you know, very working class kind of backgrounds, uh, but, uh, worked where I grew up in Northwest Coastal Oregon. But they, they tried to support me how they could. And then, uh, after high school, I, I went to college for a semester and decided it wasn't really for me. And kind of bounced around at different jobs, uh, for a while. I did construction, my dad owned a excavation company, did a few different things including home design and remodel design which was kind of a fun thing. And then, uh, at a certain point then I decided, "You know what? I'd really love to own my own business." And that was around 2005, I was 23.
Jamon Holmgren:
And so I quit my job and I started a business building websites. And so, I already kinda knew how to, how to code but I didn't know PHP, I didn't know- I didn't really know much about HTML or CSS, well, CSS back in those day was pretty minimal anyway. Uh, so I bought like, I bought a couple books, one was a PHP and MySQL book and the other one was a JavaScript book. And I started, uh, started coding and I, I built some websites, I built one for my church, uh, I built of for some other entrepreneurs who knew my dad in the construction industry. And, uh, over time, I, I think went about four years and then I started getting big enough, uh, you know, hav- having enough clients that I needed to hire some people.
Jamon Holmgren:
So, in 2009 I started hiring a few junior developers. I mean, technically I was still kinda junior, even though I'd been coding for a long time. Uh, this was, you know, I'd only been doing it professionally for a few years, but, uh, but I h- hired some people who had even less, uh, less experience. And some of them are with me still today, at, uh, Infinite Red, which is kinda fun. Taught them to code and, um, in 2012, uh, I got into open source. So, uh, we had started doing Ruby on Rails. And of course Ruby is a big open source community and I had, uh, uh, some projects that I needed to do, so, uh, I needed to, you know, like, use some open source libraries and I s- started contributing back and it was, it was really fun. And that's how I ended up, uh, meeting my, my future, current, uh, business partners, Todd Werth and Gant Laborde. Um, and so we, you know, we were doing a lot of Ruby, we were doing a, a technology called RubyMotion which was iOS and then later Android, uh, development.
Jamon Holmgren:
In 2015, we decided since we had been doing all this open source together and we seemed to have a really, uh, a good vibe, we decided to merge our businesses together. And that became Infinite Red, in 2015. We also made a few other big changes. Uh, one big one was that we went away from RubyMotion for, for, uh, mobile apps and went into React Native. Uh, and so that was, that was a fun change, um, and over time, uh, I- I started doing more open source on the React Native side, uh, we built a, a library called Ignite, we b- built a, a debugging package. We're gonna probably talk about all these things, uh, and I know I've talked about it on this podcast before in the previous iteration, uh, Reactotron as well. And then, uh, I got a chance, I think it was last year? Possibly... yeah I, I think it was last year, to join the React Native core team working on- specifically working on WebView, uh, which I then extracted into its own package and, uh, worked on the React Native community, organization and stuff like that. Still involved in the React Native core team to this day.
Jamon Holmgren:
I, I do some other things too, my, my official title is CTO at Infinite Red. Um, and I can talk about the stuff th- that we do over there, uh, later on in the podcast. But, uh you know, a lot of open source, a lot of, uh, just- just kind of being deeply enmeshed in the React Native community for a while. Uh, I think that's plenty about me for now (laughs),so I'm gonna actually hand it over to Robin and ask, Robin, uh, you know, what's your kind of- what's your kinda story getting into coding, getting into React Native itself, uh, you know, how d- how did this all come to be?
Robin Heinze:
Yeah. So, uh, I would say the first line of code that I ever wrote was, uh, Hello World in C++-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Robin Heinze:
... because I decided to take the one computer science class that my liberal arts college offered which was programming in C++ (laughs). Th- that was the first time in my life I actually was excited to go home and do my homework.
Robin Heinze:
And I would, you could say I got bit by the coding bug, but unfortunately I was at a school that did not offer a computer science major, so I finished up my, my math degree and went to work for paper company. Yes, Dunder Mifflin jokes.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, I was gonna ask.
Robin Heinze:
I've heard them all
Jamon Holmgren:
Did you have to deal with Toby in HR and everything or?
Robin Heinze:
The works, yep, exactly what you'd imagine. Um, yeah, worked for a paper company for a while. The opportunity arose for me to, to do some, uh, playin' around with VBA and macros and, um, uh, I actually built, built a tool in Excel that hooked into their Oracle database. Um, wrote a lot of SQL, a lot of SQL. Um, and but realized I kinda didn't know what I was doing. Uh, and I, I wanted someone to sort of teach me how to program like a professional does. Um, so I quit my job and I went to, uh, Epicodus, which is code school here in Portland. And I learned Rails and I got an internship and the rest is history. I did Rails for about three years. Lots of, uh, backend microservices. Uh, and then decided I wanted to move on from that particular company and got hired at Infinite Red.
Robin Heinze:
They promised me I would get to do Elixir, but (laughs) that didn't really work out. Uh, Jamon said, "Hey we really need you to build React Native, can you- can you learn how to do that?" And-
Robin Heinze:
... I did, and I've been building React Native ever since. So that was about three, three and a half years ago, that I started React Native.
Jamon Holmgren:
Maybe eventually we'll get back to Elixir. That would be fun-
Jamon Holmgren:
... but, uh, yeah it seems like all the energy is on the React Native side at this point (laughs).
Robin Heinze:
Yeah, it's been, it's- it's been, it's been really fun. I've really enjoyed getting to sort of build frontend and backend since a mobile app is sort of a- a whole stack. So, I've- I've really enjoyed doing it.
Jamon Holmgren:
And I think your, your- would you say that your background having done backend with Rails has helped you in your frontend stuff, you know, knowing kind of, uh, when you're connecting the, the backend services, APIs et cetera?
Robin Heinze:
Oh, absolutely. Um, especially- we've had a couple clients who were still kind of in the process of building their API and I've been able to help them sort of define what their, their API should look like from the perspective of the consumer of that API and also with the perspective of knowing how to build an API. Uh, so it's been, uh, really good to have sort of both sides of the equation.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, that's awesome. Cool, well thanks Robin. Um, and I'm gonna move on to, uh, to Harris here. Uh, Harris you live, uh- by the way just, I forgot to mention, I live just north of Portland, Oregon in Washington State, in Southwest Washington state which is currently covered in a thick blanket of smoke from fires just east of us. Uh, Robin is also covered by that same (laughs) thick blanket, I think.
Robin Heinze:
Yeah. Yeah, we've got the, uh, the eerie yellow sky.
Jamon Holmgren:
Right. Yeah, it's, it's pretty crazy here. Uh, so Robin is, is just west of, uh, of Portland in Beaverton, Oregon which is, like, the most Oregon town name ever. Beaverton?
Robin Heinze:
It- yes. It is (laughs).
Jamon Holmgren:
We do have beavers here. Uh, and also, uh, s- Harris is over in Montreal, uh, so I don't- I hope there's no fires over in that area. But, Harris, uh, tell us, tell us, uh, kinda how you got into coding and then specifically about your, your React Native experience and anything else about your background that you wanna share.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Sure, sure. So, I got into coding because when I was younger I used to play a lot of browser-based games, uh, specifically I used to play, uh, like, MMORPG called Dark Throne. It's like, just this, like, RPG game on the browser. And, and I... I actually just, like, wanted to ch- cheat in the game, because they had this, like-
Harris Robin Kalash:
... button that you had to click 300- yeah, like (laughs)- so y- you would like build population in the game and you have to click this button 350 times a day to build population. And when you have multiple accounts, it's not really feasible to actually like it click with it the mouse. So I don't know if, if any of you know Grease Monkey, but, um-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Harris Robin Kalash:
... yeah, so I started with Grease Monkey actually. So it's, like, just scripting, like, really being a script kiddie and grabbing, like, whatever I could find, putting it together. And, uh, then I started building my own scripts, uh, again to keep cheating on the- in the game.
Harris Robin Kalash:
And eventually (laughs), eventually I went to high school in Toronto actually and I joined, like a computer science club. And, uh, someone actually pitched me to build, like, the website for the club, for like $500. It's like the crappiest website I've ever built, but I couldn't believe that I was gonna get paid for it. And, uh, after that I decided that, you know, university wasn't really working out for me. Just like Robin, like, I was like, "You know, I don't really what I'm doing still." So I literally went to New York, I went to a bootcamp called Fullstack Academy. Uh, actually, I, I begged my dad to fund it, I, I didn't have the money. It was like pretty expensive, there was no ISA models like they have today. Uh, so-
Jamon Holmgren:
Right.
Harris Robin Kalash:
... you know I think it was like 20 grand or something? The- I just begged-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Harris Robin Kalash:
... my dad, I'm like, uh, and honestly, it was the best investment ever. Like, the rest was history, so. And uh, then I started-
Jamon Holmgren:
Did your dad, did your dad think it was the best investment ever? That's the good- big question (laughs).
Harris Robin Kalash:
Uh, n- n- no actually, it's funny y- you say that because I recently spoke to him and I don't think he realizes how much that investment paid off, to this day.
Jamon Holmgren:
Oh yeah.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Right? Like, to him it was, like, "Okay, like, what is my son doing now?"
Harris Robin Kalash:
... it was like.
Jamon Holmgren:
Well, I can say, I can tell you it was pretty similar with my dad 'cause he bought the, uh-
Harris Robin Kalash:
Uh-huh.
Jamon Holmgren:
... he bought a computer back in 1992 or something like that. And, uh, he was gonna use it for his business, you know, uh, his excavation company. Uh, and little did he know the, uh, much bigger impact, 'cause he didn't end up using it for business- his business.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
Uh, it was, was really on his son. So, a pretty similar idea there (laughs).
Harris Robin Kalash:
Yeah. Yeah exactly. So... y- yeah, it's like out of all the money he spent on my education, I don't think he realized how much this one specifically compounded.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Harris Robin Kalash:
And, uh, yeah, then I started doing React Native and, and, you know, loved it. And I just love, like, I- I love the whole all around aspect client side, server side. And working with you guys which has been great, so yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Uh, I- I should mention that Robin works for Infinite Red as in, as a software engineer of course and then, uh, Harris has been freelancing with us.
Jamon Holmgren:
Uh, and Adhithi, uh, so, tell us, uh, your, your background and how you got into coding. Uh, are you, are you the one person here who has a computer science degree? Uh...
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Same. Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
And then also how you got into React Native.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
If I didn't have a degree. Um-
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs). Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
So yeah. Just like you Jamon, I was interested in just computer science and code even as a small kid. Um, and back in India, when I was in maybe, even in elementary school, we had, like basic computer classes as a part of our curriculum. And I think the first thing I learnt was Logo. There's like a small turtle that just- you need to move the turtle around, uh-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
... with the code. Uh, so that was my first, uh, programming language followed by I think BASIC? And then at that time, my dad thought, "Okay, uh, my daughter seems to be interested in computers, I'm gonna take her to this class called IT Kids." It was this really, um, cool new computer course class I had to go after school. And I was the only girl there and everybody else was just boys. Um, and that's kinda how it's been for me until today, you know, I don't-
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
... I don't, I don't see a lot of women around where I work. So yeah that's kind of what I started with as a kid, and I, I did get interested as I grew up, um, so I did my bachelor's in computer science. Um, and I came here to, uh, Lawrence, Kansas in 2010 and did my master's in computer science.
Jamon Holmgren:
Hmm.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
At that time, um, I always like teaching, so I started teaching, um, I was a TA for a few courses during that time, which was mostly C++, Java, and there was one course back then which was Android programming they gave us all fancy tablets and the students got one too. Free tablets, which was nice, um-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
... so, um, it was kinda cool and new and we were, like, learning how to do, like, animations and stuff, with Java and I was teaching that course. So, um, started that way and then I started my real first job in 2012. I worked for a pretty big healthcare company here in Kansas City.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
I was there for four years, um, did plenty of things, did C++, Java and eventually got to JavaScript. And it was mostly a full stack position there. Around four years I realized that, you know, I was doing the same thing over and over again, um, and I didn't get the big picture, 'cause I was, like, it's like 20,000 people in the company. So I just wanted a change, where I could, you know, bring in more impact to a smaller company. So I moved to, um, a small startup called Redivus Health which just started then, um-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
... and we were only, like, five of us back then.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
And I was one of the first engineers and we were like, "Okay, what do we do, what are we building?" We were gonna build a healthcare app. Um, and it was a mobile app which had to work on both iOS and Android. And, um, at that time, our CEO is a doctor, so he was, like, not sure what is a, you know, tech stack we're gonna pick and ultimately we picked React Native which was, you know, up and coming and we knew it was a big risk, but we didn't really have enough money to invest in both iOS and native Android developers. So like, "Okay, I guess we all know JavaScript and we're gonna do React Native." And it was, it was brand new, so that's how I got into React Native and, um, it's been four years. And in this four years, I've started, you know, really getting into React Native JavaScript, React-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
... just the frontend community, I just moved away from being a full stack developer to, like, a frontend developer. Um, and also interested in GraphQL and things like that. And I started speaking at conferences, um, just talking about React Native and that's where I met, uh, Jamon, 'cause-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, that's right. At Chain React, uh, was it 2019 or 18?
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Last year, yeah, 2019.
Jamon Holmgren:
It was last year. Okay.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Yeah, yeah. Um-
Jamon Holmgren:
Awesome.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
... so met the Chain- at Chain React, I met all the Infinite Red, um, you know, the community. Um and started speaking at conferences, doing courses, um, for Pluralsight and started doing a lot of blogging. So yeah, the last year I actually did start a company called Surya Consulting, I'm the only employee.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Um, and I offer all my teaching services, I do some mentoring, blogging and all that stuff.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
So it's been good, it's been a good ride for me, you know, the last eight years working I went from a big company to a small company, to even starting my own company and just hopefully keep going. So yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs) yeah. Yeah, that's great. Uh, it's, it's great to have, uh, your experience here, it's a very wide experience because you've done, uh, education, you ob- you've obviously worked for bigger companies as well as smaller startups. Um, and, uh, just, you know, having another entrepreneur in the group is, is helpful too for, for that perspective.
Robin Heinze:
Yeah, the rest of us don't really understand the pain that Jamon goes through everyday.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
I think the biggest pain is, like, the legal and the tax and all those stuff.
Jamon Holmgren:
Urgh. Oh man.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Yeah. Even if it's like a one person company, I'm like, "Urgh, oh my gosh."
Robin Heinze:
(Laughing).
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs). We could probably do a whole episode on that. Not to, like, have R- Robin and, and Harris, like, n- not have but, you know, I- I f- I feel like there's some, there a lot of p- probably a lot people in our, in our audience at React Native Radio who do, on their own, consultancies or their own startups and they, they do go through a lot of, a lot of those types of pains.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Yeah, I actually recently started, like, uh, very recently, I, uh, in- incorporated, so I'm starting to go through these pains now.
Jamon Holmgren:
Okay. Yeah and that's uh-
Harris Robin Kalash:
Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
... you're, you're, you're doing it in Canada, so different country than us. Uh, but there are a lot of very, very similar things no matter where you are.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Same ideas, it's just, like, to optimize for taxes. But then you start realizing that there's all these tricks you can do. Like I got this, like, really creative accountant who told me that I've-
Harris Robin Kalash:
... yeah, uh, and it's important to say creative accountant 'cause most accountants usually are not creative.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Whereas like (laughs), so, yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs). Should you be saying this publicly Harris, that's the big question, uh, you know.
Harris Robin Kalash:
I mean, uh, I told him I wanna do every thing the right way, but (laughs), apparently you can, you can (laughs).
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs), nice save, nice save. Yeah, I like that.
Jamon Holmgren:
So let's- can I talk about the acquisition of React Native Radio. This, uh, you know, I've, I've listened to the podcast, I've, I've been on the podcast as a guest, I've been on the podcast as co-host, um, but we, we were looking- we've been looking, as Infinite Red, you know, we're deeply embedded in the React Native community. For those of y- of you don't know who Infinite Red is, uh, I'm sure plenty do, uh, we put on Chain React, which is the biggest, actually I think the only, uh, Rea- React Native focused, uh, conference, tech conference in the U.S. that happens every non-COVID year in July. Really missed this, this past year not getting together with everybody.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
I know.
Robin Heinze:
2021.
Jamon Holmgren:
Right, 2021. I'm very, very hopeful that we can do it in 2021. Um, and then we also do- like we, we manage the, the biggest newsletter, uh, which has I don't know 11 or 12,000 subscribers. Uh, it's a great newsletter by the way, uh, go to, I think it's reactnativenewsletter.com. Uh, we'll put it in the show notes. Um, we also do a lot of open source where we have several people involved in the React Native core, uh, team. We do Ignite, which is the biggest uh, React Native boilerplate out there by quite a wide margin and probably the most active in terms of development. We also have Reactotron which is a desktop app that allows you to debug React and React Native apps. Although it's primarily used for React Native apps at this point, it's also, uh, it's also integrated with Flipper, uh, Facebook asked us to integrate into Flipper, when they did a, a re-launch of Flipper, uh, which is another desktop debugging app. And so that, that integration has gone really well.
Jamon Holmgren:
I think I'm missing some big stuff, but we've done, I mean, I- I- I don't know, I could keep going on, uh, we've, we have a lot of things. But we didn't have a podcast. We didn't have podcast about this. We have- we have a different podcast, Building Infinite Red, you can go to building.infinite.red for that. But that's more focused on the company. That's company not- tha- tha- that's, that is focused on Infinite Red as a company and how built it. Um, so it's really nice to have a technical podcast now, uh, and so we had this opportunity to buy it, uh, from DevChat.tv and we did that. And, uh, I think that for us it was just kind of, like, continuing to, to, reaffirm our investment in the React Native community. Uh, of course we're a consultancy so, uh, as, you know, people here about us, then they'll recommend us to their bosses, or their friends saying, "Hey, if you need some React Native help, then this is a company that is really deeply invested in it." Uh, we definitely are- we do some React Web for sure, but, uh, w- we're, we're most known for our React Native consulting.
Jamon Holmgren:
So I'd like to ask everybody here, what are your expectations now that we're doing a relaunch of React Native Radio. What are your expectations going forward for the podcast. I'm gonna start with, with Harris and I'm gonna ask, like, like, what- what types of things are you interested in us covering? What do you think you know, how, how do you think this is gonna go, going forward?
Harris Robin Kalash:
Personally, my expectations are more around just, you know, getting more connected to the community, like, I know we have the Infinite Red Community Slack, but-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Harris Robin Kalash:
... I do think that I, like, I feel personally like I haven't really participated much in sort of the React Native community. I sort of just focus on my work-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Harris Robin Kalash:
... and I'd like to change that. And also one of my personal goals is to contribute more to open source-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Harris Robin Kalash:
... and, uh, just get more- uh, in terms of the podcast itself, uh, I'm hoping that, you know, we can not only cover technical stuff, but even, like, just React Native adoption all around the world-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm
Harris Robin Kalash:
... whether it's businesses, like, a good example is the Canadian government is actually using React Native for their COVID-19 tracking app.
Jamon Holmgren:
Oh yeah, yeah, I heard about that.
Harris Robin Kalash:
So that's cool (laughs). That's-
Jamon Holmgren:
I think I looked at the code and it- and they were actually using Reactotron.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Yeah. Uh, yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, that's, that's awesome. Uh, I loved, I loved seeing that. And I agree with you Harris, like, uh, getting more connected with the community is, is definitely a goal of mine. Uh, Adhithi-
Harris Robin Kalash:
Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
... w- what about you? Like, what, what, what do you see us accomplishing with the podcast and what are your, your goals for it?
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Very similar. Um, I love engaging with the community too and, you know, I see this an op- as an opportunity talk to other React Native experts. And as Harris mentioned, you know, learn about other businesses that are adopting React Native, how they're using it, what do they like about it, what do they not like about it, and, you know. Being a co-contributor yourself, you know, you can take that feedback too and, you know, improve React Native. Um, also with the pandemic going on, it's kind of been like a shutdown for me with the society and I'm a pretty extroverted person so I like to talk. So I see this as an opportunity to talk to more people with shared interest, learn about React Native and share our experiences together. So yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, that' awesome. Definitely I echo that myself. And Robin, uh, same question to you.
Robin Heinze:
Well, of course I'll- I- like, I'll echo what Harris and Adhithi said about the community, but on a, on a lighter vein, Jamon probably know that I'm the type of person who, if it's not broken, why fix it? And so I- I tend to get very, uh, entrenched in, like, "Hey this version of React Native's working, why, why upgrade?"
Robin Heinze:
And so I, like, I may be not know, like, all of the, the new features that are coming out and this will be a great opportunity to sort of keep up with the new exciting, uh, features that are coming out on React Native and maybe new exciting libraries. Um, but yeah, it'll, it'll give me a, a great chance to, uh, keep up with things.
Jamon Holmgren:
Absolutely. I'm, I'm definitely in there too. I- even though I'm somewhat immersed in it, uh, because I don't it every day, my job is, is, is very different. Um, it, uh, this allows me to kind of connnect in at a different level. And I would also say, just answering for myself, um, I'm, I'm really interested in bringing a more diverse, uh, hosting group and, and also guests to the podcast. And I- I- you know, I think there are a lot of interesting guests out there. Some from within Infinite Red who never get a chance to really talk from many outside of, uh, Infinite Red. People- you kind of, you hear the same voices over and over and over on podcasts, and I want to break out of that a bit. Not that we won't have people on that, you know, are relatively popular in the community but also have a lot of people on that, you know, people haven't heard of and haven't heard their stories and their perspectives.
Jamon Holmgren:
And lastly, I just, I love talking shop, so this is, like, my favorite part of the week here. I, you know, just getting a chance to sit down with, with, uh, with the panel and, and chat about, you know, React Native, uh, for an hour or however long we do it. So yeah, this is definitely something I'm, I'm very much looking forward to.
Jamon Holmgren:
Let me pivot into our secondary topic here, the state of uh, React Native. Uh, you know, Robin, I'm gonna ask you, what do you do see- I mean you, you've been working in React Native for how long now? Three years?
Robin Heinze:
Three, yeah, three and a half years now.
Jamon Holmgren:
Three and a half years, so, over time there's been a lot of change, uh, in both the community as well as the tech- technology stack itself. What, um, what do you see, uh, like, are you optimistic about React Native? Like, wha- what do you see as the current state of React Native?
Robin Heinze:
Oh, I'm absolutely optimistic. I mean when we- when I first started doing React Native, it- I wasn't at the very, very leading edge. I think I came in right around version, like, 40, 30, like 38, 40 something-
Jamon Holmgren:
Okay. Yep.
Robin Heinze:
... somewhere around there. So it, it was somewhat establishied but it was still, like, every release had some pretty major bugs and it still kinda felt like it was finding its footing and it definitely doesn't feel like that anymore. It feels like it, it works solidly and you can pretty much expect that a major release isn't gonna break core, uh, features.
Jamon Holmgren:
Knock on wood, yep. (Laughs).
Robin Heinze:
Knock on wood, yeah (laughs). I w- won't knock on wood 'cause Todd'll get mad at me. But (laughs)-
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs). Okay, I, I, I have to explain that. So Todd is our, is both my, my, uh, my co-founder, our CEO and our sound engineer.
Robin Heinze:
He would not want me to knock on my wooden desk right about now (laughs). Uh, but yeah. Hi Todd. Um, so yeah, knock on wood, but it definitely feels like the technology itself and the features are much more stable and you just see a lot more companies using it. Like, like big, like big name companies, like-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Robin Heinze:
... that's a good indicator.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, along those lines, I, I was, um, I'd, I'd just gotten, during the pandemic, I got into a new game with my son, new computer game. He's 15 and, uh, we play games together and we got into- well it's not a new game, it's been around since 1999, but it's called Age of Vampires II. It's been around forever, uh, and we and I'd never played it before. So I started playing it in March and I downloaded an app for, like, it's called AoE II Companion. And it's written in React Native. It's, it's pretty awesome, uh, just, you know, random stuff like that, you just, like, a different interest and you run into this technology.
Jamon Holmgren:
Adhithi, you've been doing this as well, for, for a long time, uh, React Native, you've been on it since just about the beginning of when it came out.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
I think so, yeah, about four years now. Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah. So how, how has it kind of changed and where- what's the state of it right now?
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
I agree with Robin here, you know, back then, every single upgrade was a breaking change and it would kind of scare us, uh, "Do we really need to do this upgrade right now?"
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Um, but we had to 'cause a lot of things would get deprecated, um, some navigation libraries would just change completely, the APIs would change and things like that. But now, four years later, I really think although we're not on version one, it's a pretty stable, um, framework, um, for, for building mobile apps.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Things have matured in the React Native community as well. Lots, lots of, uh, open source libraries are out there as a part of the React Native community. And, um, yeah, I, I think it's, it's going pretty strong and, you know, lots of startups, lots of companies use React Native. Also, um, as React keeps growing as well, uh, four years ago, what React was versus what it is today? It's grown a lot as well. A lot of React developers are now becoming React Native developers as well. They're just wearing both hats, um, so things like functional components, Hooks and um, you know, just moving away from complex logic like lifecycle methods and all of that, um, has helped new developers. And, um, as far as I've seen web developers seem to really enjoy going with React Native, like it.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Robin Heinze:
Yeah, I definitely see a trend where React Native is a chance for web developers to start building Native. And, and less of a chance for Native developers to learn JavaScript. I think-
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Right.
Robin Heinze:
... I think companies are seeing the benefit of, of sort of repurposing some of their web, web team to- to iterate on Native really quickly. And I think the, the issues that, that companies like, like Airbnb saw-
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robin Heinze:
... were Native teams trying to move to JavaScript rather than taking existing JavaScript developers and having them develop Native apps.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Yeah. I've seen that trend as well, 'cause even at conferences I usually ask, um, the audience, when I talk about React Native, "How many of you are Native developers and how many of you are, you know, web developers?"
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
And almost always, everyone who attends my talk would be a web developer.
Jamon Holmgren:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Or they just got into React Native. It, it never pulls in Native developers at all.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, definitely been the case. And, uh, I actually think that that's a challenge for the React Native community. Myself, I think that there, it would be nice to bring in more Native developers, uh, to make it a, kind of an- a welcoming environment for Native developers. Uh, 'cause I actually think we need both, you know, having the web developer side is great, uh, but we also need the Native side for, for people who aren't, aren't afraid to just dive in to the Native code and, you know, the- write some Objective-C or, or Java.
Robin Heinze:
I, I'd love to see a, uh, Objective-C and Kotlin or Objective-C and Java for React Native developers course-
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Mm-hmm
Robin Heinze:
... or tutorial. I'd- see I'd love to see a lot more of those.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
I agree, 'cause every time we open up, like, Xcode or something, I'm like, "Why am I doing this right now?"
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs).
Jamon Holmgren:
So, so this is definitely a, a very keen interest of mine. I actually have in the Infinite Red Academy which is a, uh, another thing that we do, uh, we have some courses there. Um, I actually have a draft course right now called Native Development for React Native Developers.
Robin Heinze:
Oh wow, what a coincidence.
Jamon Holmgren:
Uh, yes, what a coincidence, thanks Robin. Uh, the biggest problem (laughs) for me has just been finding time to work on it. Uh, I, I really am interested in it, I think it's very interesting. There's a lot of really cool stuff that we can do. I will give a shout out, there's a great talk, uh, on Xcode by, uh, Orta Theroux, I actually don't know how to say his last name, to be honest. He just goes by Orta online, O-R-T-A. And, uh, he's one of the most prolific open source developers you can find out there. And he gave a talk at React Native EU in Poland last year about Xcode and it's fantastic. I think you should absolutely watch it, you will learn so much about what's going on. And it's not, like, super, super deep dive stuff. It's more like, "What is this panel, why is it here? What's its purpose, like, how do you navigate around in here?" By the end of this talk, I was like, "Xcode's not scary." (Laughs). You know, it was like, "Okay, I get it." You know? And so definitely go check that out, we'll try to put a link to it in our, in our show notes as well.
Jamon Holmgren:
Harris, I don't think we've hit you yet on this. Uh, what- where do you see the state of React Native currently, uh, what- what's it like and how do you see it going forward?
Harris Robin Kalash:
I mean, I pretty much agree with every thing you guys said, uh, you've- I think you've touched on everything. Uh, personally from my experience, I- one- one- one thing that I did notice is that, like, other than, you know, the big companies, now it's hard not to- You're, you're seeing y- all the up and coming startups, all the new companies that will have like three founders and they just got funded and they just got into IC, like they're React Native has become their first choice, whereas before it was like yeah you had Airbnb at first and then you had, like, Walmart and, you know, later (laughs) nbnb- Airbnb dropped it. But now React Native has really started becoming a first choice rather than a secondary choice for a lot of these companies.
Harris Robin Kalash:
And honestly I- when I first started playing with React Native, I- I thought it was just a toy. Now, I can't, I don't remember the last, like, the last time I did a React web project was actually pretty recent, it was, uh, one of uh, like Infinite Red client. But before that I- like, it's been a while, like since I've touched, uh, web. It's just yeah, it's just been React Native. And, and I'd love to see that course, uh, Jamon, uh, I- I'm gonna watch that video, I definitely wanna improve my Native skills, so.
Jamon Holmgren:
For sure, yeah.
Robin Heinze:
I've also noticed from the perspective of working with like for a consultancy, that, you know, we're always having to to sell our stacks to clients. And it used to be that we had to really sell, "Hey why are you using this cutting edge technology, can we trust it?" And we don't really have to do that as much anymore. Like, most- a lot of our clients are already familiar with it and we have a lot more, uh, companies to point to saying like, "Look at all these companies that are using this technology, it's pretty reliable." And having Facebook behind it helps a lot too. But yeah, we don't really have to convince clients that it, that it's safe.
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah, totally Robin, I, I 100% agree. I do our technical sales and these days if there is a question, it's usually very easily answered with obviously, Facebook's using it. But not just Facebook, Microsoft is literally rewriting Microsoft Office. From what I understand, the whole Office Suite, in React Native. And so, that's a big deal, like, everybody's used Office, for, for years and years and years. Um, for them to trust such an important part of their product suite to this technology is a big vote of confidence.
Jamon Holmgren:
Also, uh, I do think that in terms of the state of, of React Native there is more competition than ever. Uh, we also have Flutter, which is a very good platform out of, out of, uh, or framework out of, out of Google. And, uh, there's also just recently Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile was announced, um, and so what's kind of interesting is that React Native is actually kind of being seen as more the safe choice out of all these. Uh, you know, as good as Flutter is, which it is very, very good, um, you know, the web story of React Native is just so good. 'Cause, like, React is the biggest web framework- frontend framework out there, I'm pretty sure, by a pretty wide margin.
Jamon Holmgren:
And, uh, so you have so many, you know, resources, third party libraries, programmers available to work in, in React. And we've, uh, you know, we've had people get productive from React to React Native in, uh, just, just a few weeks time. It's, it doesn't take much to, to get them productive. Um, and that's a big deal, for, for companies. Even if Flutter is better for mobile, which that's arguable, I think that, that would be a, a good episode by itself. Uh, even if it was, uh, they just can't compete on the web side of things. There is Flutter for web, but it's just not- it's not like anybody's like, "Hey, we're using Flutter on web, I guess maybe we should use Flutter, on, on mobile too." That's just not how it works. Uh, where with React and React Native that happens all the time.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
And I think, um, learning Dart is a problem too, you know-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah. Dart the language.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
... I don't know how hard or easier it is. So.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Yeah, just to add to that, it's also like for me I'm, I'm doing Swift right now and it's not just the language, right? It's like the, the, the mental model, like, when I opened Xcode, like, having to do MVVM the way, like, the view and the controller, like, uh, you know, tied together. It's just having to rethink in that way versus, like, when we use Redux or MobX and- or like unidirectional data-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Harris Robin Kalash:
... flow. That's also what makes it hard, um, more than the language I would say actually. It's- yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
For sure, yeah, there's a differently mentality on that side, uh, although they're learning from React, which is kind of interesting with SwiftUI and now uh, Jetpack Compose on the Android side. They're starting to take some of the best ideas from those things and apply them over there. Um, but, you know, there's a lot of legacy baggage on both sides, uh, when it comes to those things, yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
I think, uh, I think we'll, we'll, we'll kind of wrap up now. Uh, I'm, I'm really excited to have all four of you, all four of us I should say (laughs)-
Jamon Holmgren:
... uh, doing this, doing this podcast, um, I'm- I'm very, very interested in seeing what we do next. Uh, I think that there's gonna be some fun stuff. Um, of course, you know, th- this- because we, we purchased podcast you're gonna be hearing Infinite Red's name a lot, but, uh, if you are interested in, in sponsoring the podcast and helping support us, get in touch with me, uh, jamon@infinite.red.
Jamon Holmgren:
Where can people find you online? Adhithi, wh- what's your, uh, Twitter handle?
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
It's @adhithiravi, it's A-D-H-I-T-H-I-R-A-V-I.
Jamon Holmgren:
Perfect, and, uh, Robin, where can people find you?
Robin Heinze:
Uh, I'm on Twitter @robin_heinze, and that's with an E on the end, not like the ketchup.
Jamon Holmgren:
Not like the ketchup. Yes (laughs).
Jamon Holmgren:
Wh- when you announced your, your daughter, uh, didn't you put little Heinz Ketchup bottles?
Robin Heinze:
Yes, uh, (laughs), when we announced that we were having our daughter, we had, uh, a, a large Heinz Ketchup bottle and medium sized Heinz Ketchup bottle and then a little tiny-
Robin Heinze:
... I don't, uh, I think it was like a restaurant souvenir. I don't know where it came from-
Jamon Holmgren:
Yeah.
Robin Heinze:
... but we had a really tiny Heinz Ketchup bottle and so it was. Yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
It was super cute, yeah.
Jamon Holmgren:
Uh, and, uh, Harris, wh- what's yours?
Harris Robin Kalash:
Uh, it's, uh, brunostmann. It's, uh, B-R-U-N-O-S-T-M-A-N-N
Jamon Holmgren:
Got it. And then you can find me on Twitter @jamonholmgren, J-A-M-O-N-H-O-L-M-G-R-E-N. Um, and I'm pretty, pretty active on there, uh, happy to engage with people, uh, you know, on Twitter.
Jamon Holmgren:
Um, make sure to-
Robin Heinze:
Jamon likes, Jamon likes to do Twitter instead of work.
Jamon Holmgren:
(Laughs). J- calling me out, just like that. Wow. Wow, uh, it's true though.
Robin Heinze:
(Laughing). You can tell I'm secure in my employment.
Jamon Holmgren:
Exactly. You can see what kind of- kind of job this is.
Jamon Holmgren:
Uh, but, uh (laughs), it's true. Uh, I, I justify it though Robin. Uh, it's networking, quote, unquote.
Jamon Holmgren:
Can you see the air quotes? Um, but do, uh, make sure to subscribe to our podcast, we're on all the major podcasting platforms. It's the, the podcast's called React Native Radio. Um, in future episodes, we're gonna add a new section, we're not gonna do it this time, but, uh, there's a- gonna be a new section called Weird Bugs. So, uh, we're gonna be talking about weird bugs in our- that we've encountered in our React Native, um, you know, uh, uh, as we're working with React Native. There are plenty of weird bugs when you're working with React Native (laughs), so this'll be kind of a fun one. Um, and, uh, I'm really looking forward to that as well.
Jamon Holmgren:
So, uh, thanks everybody for being here with us, today. And we'll see you next time.
Robin Heinze:
See ya.
Harris Robin Kalash:
Bye.
Robin Heinze:
Bye everyone.
Adhithi Ravinchandran:
Bye.