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Hey, everyone! What I've always loved about Rails is just how productive I feel when I'm using it.
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Before Rails, I spent a lot of time working with Python, Django, PHP, .NET, and various frameworks. I like many aspects of them, but nothing has come close to Rails.
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The combination of Rails as a framework and its language allows me to move quickly from an idea to a working version. While working in Rails, I don't feel like I spend a lot of time solving web development problems; instead, I focus on the unique issues related to the project at hand.
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On the other hand, when it comes to mobile application development, I haven't experienced that same level of efficiency. I've spent time building native mobile applications in Java for Android, and although I appreciate the languages and the tooling, I often felt like I was spending too much time on basic mobile development problems.
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Things like making API calls and persisting data—tasks that I assume every mobile developer has to solve—have taken me a significant amount of time. If you also consider cross-platform support for iOS and Android alongside a web version, it can require three developers to deliver features consistently across the board.
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This has always led me to resist the push for native development, as it tends to lead to a substantial decrease in productivity. Over the years, I've sought after magic solutions, which, of course, don't exist.
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I've built HTML5 web applications and deployed them with PhoneGap, as well as explored compiled native solutions like Appcelerator. While both approaches have their merits, I've not managed to create an HTML5 web application that feels genuinely native.
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These applications feel more like web applications that are just marginally better on mobile. Compiler frameworks can also lead to challenges in testing and maintenance, diluting their supposed benefits.
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However, about 18 months ago at Catapult, where I work, we began experimenting with React for our web applications. Initially, we made a lot of mistakes, but within a few months, we arrived at a stack we were quite happy with and successfully converted our front-end to React.
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React is famously promoted by Facebook as 'Learn once, write anywhere,' instead of 'Write once, run anywhere.' I was skeptical of this claim initially because it felt like many platforms promised similar compatibility.
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Nevertheless, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that most of what we learned while building React applications for the web carried over to React Native for mobile. It's possible to make the same mistakes on both platforms, but the architectural principles and libraries we used in React Web often applied directly to React Native.
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This was fantastic because it meant any developer who was already familiar with our web codebase could quickly adapt and work on our mobile codebase, which was incredibly exciting.
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From this point, we considered why we couldn't share our own code across platforms since libraries are essentially just reusable code written by others.
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This led us to the realization that a significant amount of our business logic—that is to say, the majority of our code—could now be shared across entirely native applications as well as our web applications.
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The outcome of this was that if we wanted to develop native applications and a completely separate web interface, the effort required to support three platforms could decrease to an additional 10% for each extra platform, rather than tripling our development resources.
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As a result, I no longer felt like the person in the back of the room resisting the decision to pursue native development, fearing that we would need significantly more developers to accommodate that change.
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So, I'm Ben, by the way. I'm the CTO of Catapult, a staffing platform based in London. I've spoken at conferences like this a few times before, typically covering topics related to Docker or server deployment.
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Although I consider myself a full-stack developer, I feel much more comfortable setting up infrastructure or building APIs than I do with front-end development.
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That changed when I started working with React. I want to give this talk because this React and React Native stack is the first time I really felt like the tools made me as productive building front-end applications as I am building Rails applications.
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There are three areas I want to cover: First, a high-level overview of what a production React application looks like and its components; second, a discussion of the important considerations for our stack, especially regarding minimizing friction when sharing code between web and native codebases.
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Finally, in a more detailed exploration, I’ve reflected on where I wasted the most time over the past 18 months and the sort of things I wish someone had pointed out to me early on.
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The first important takeaway is that React is not a framework; it’s not like Angular, which includes almost everything necessary to build a front end or JavaScript application.
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React essentially provides just a view layer. It offers a declarative model for defining components, allowing us to pass props and data into those components.
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React then determines what needs to be rendered based on that input. When building for the web, this means using ReactDOM and generating HTML. For mobile, it involves using native components through React Native.
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However, React doesn’t provide solutions for API calls or data persistence, which can be confusing when people refer to features as built-in React.
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What is generally meant by this is that React is being used as a view layer alongside a collection of other libraries fulfilling the rest of the requirements.
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As a Rails developer, I am somewhat spoiled because we often have a community consensus on what to use—if it’s not provided by Rails, there’s a well-accepted solution.
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In the JavaScript ecosystem, however, that can lead to a very stressful environment, as you may be told to use one library this week and another the next.
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What I'm going to present now is by no means a definitive React stack; rather, it’s one we have been very satisfied with and the one I've observed being used across various large React codebases.
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This stack has proven to be very friendly, especially if your main goal is to maximize code reuse across web and mobile applications.
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A typical React stack will need four main components: a Router, which in React terms serves to map URLs to specific components that need to be rendered.
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In a native mobile application, the Router functions similarly; it recognizes when you want to display a login screen and determines which components should be rendered for that.
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When discussing React, we'll also require an implementation of React for the web, which is ReactDOM, and for mobile, we’ll employ React Native.
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Managing global application state in React is less straightforward, as React itself does not prescribe a standard way to do so. There are, however, widely adopted patterns in the community.
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Many developers may refer to these concepts using the Flux pattern or Redux, which is my preferred implementation.
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These patterns have emerged largely in response to the challenges in managing state within modern JavaScript applications.
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In a typical JavaScript application, your state might be stored in a variety of models, potentially updated by various callbacks and API calls, leading to complex interactions that can create race conditions.
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Using Redux, however, allows for a simplified and predictable state management system where the only way to change application state is by dispatching an action.
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Actions describe the changes we want to make, and reducers handle these actions by accepting the current state and returning a new state based on the action's type.
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This process creates a clear, linear approach to managing application state, providing us with a deterministic way to understand how our application is functioning.
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By subscribing to state updates, different parts of the application, including the UI, can react to changes in state without directly altering the state.
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This approach benefits from powerful tooling that allows us to step back through state changes, even rewinding to earlier states of the application.
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Let’s look at a very simple example: imagine an app with a button that increments a counter. The counter’s goal is to reach the highest number possible.
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We begin with an initial state represented as a JavaScript object with properties such as count, user name, and rank.
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In a traditional JavaScript app, upon clicking the button, we would directly update this object. However, using Redux, instead of making this direct modification, we dispatch an action.
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The dispatched action is a simple JavaScript object that contains a type property (e.g., ‘increment’) and its relevant payload.
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We then pass both this action and the application's current state into a reducer function, which evaluates the action type and decides how to modify the state accordingly.
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The reducer operates without modifying the original state object; instead, it creates a new object with the updated state.
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The rest of the UI can subscribe to these state changes to respond accordingly, ensuring that actions are processed in a sequential manner.
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Now we need to address side effects, a term that can be a bit confusing. When people refer to side effects, they usually mean asynchronous actions.
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In our counter application, for example, if we wanted to maintain leaderboards due to its popularity, we would need to perform API calls whenever the button is pressed.
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In this case, utilizing a library like Redux Saga can help us manage these asynchronous effects. Redux Saga listens for dispatched actions and can trigger the necessary API calls.
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Once the asynchronous action is completed, Redux Saga dispatches additional actions to update the state with the latest information.
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These four components—the Router, state management, the action handling, and side effects—form the foundation of our application architecture.
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Next, we need to consider what aspects can and should be shared between web and mobile codebases.
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Originally, I was not interested in creating HTML5 versions of native applications because I hadn't encountered many production applications where the web version was simply a scaled-up version of the mobile one.
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My assumption has generally been that the view layers of mobile and web applications would differ significantly in structure and layout.
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For instance, a form that takes up one screen on a web application may require three, four, or even five separate screens on mobile. Therefore, I have avoided sharing the view structure.
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This thought process aligns with how we build Rails applications. If we develop a web application and decide to add a JSON API, we keep the business logic in models, service objects, and maintain a separate, clean view layer.
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We wouldn't consider mixing a single view for a JSON API with a traditional HTML view, as they serve very different purposes.
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Applying this reasoning helps not only maintain structure but also maximize efficiency when sharing code. The critical pieces tend to revolve around state management and side effects, which can easily be shared.
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Thus, we see significant benefits in sharing those components.
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For practical examples, nearly every application includes a login page. It begins with a Router that dictates which components to display.
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The view layers will likely differ across web and mobile platforms, but there are commonalities when addressing the login button's functionality.
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Regardless of the platform, the action that occurs when the login button is clicked boils down to dispatching an action aimed at updating the application's global state.
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We would want to set flags that indicate the app is processing a login, allowing the UI to display loading indicators as necessary.
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Simultaneously, we would initiate an API call to login the user, using our side effects to manage the login action.
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This API call will return a success or failure. When successful, we should update our state accordingly, hide the loading indicator, and store any related data such as the login token.
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Ultimately, we want to redirect the user to a dashboard or home page, and this logic may need to interface with the Router.
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This is where the separation of concerns begins to blend because the side effect has to interact with components that aren’t shared.
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Thus, we may end up needing an if-condition for web and mobile or disconnecting the side effect entirely from that logic.
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At the beginning of this login flow, when the login button is pressed, the view component contains both the button handler and callbacks for success or failure, which can inform the Router to carry out proper navigation.
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This keeps the side effect shareable while allowing the component to know how to interact with the Router.
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Ideally, following this pattern allows us to separate our business logic while sharing actions, reducers, and side effects, creating a structure akin to that of a standard React application.
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This has made it much easier for developers to transition between mobile and web development; they can contribute seamlessly to one or the other.
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I would like to clarify that there is indeed a level of complexity involved, especially regarding native functionality, such as when a mobile app wants to access device GPS.
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In such cases, asynchronous behavior is required, making it difficult to create a genuinely shared component.
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I learned the hard way that while it’s important to strive for shared operations, sometimes it's necessary to tailor solutions for unique functionalities.
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This point emphasizes the way we divide the overall architecture of the application, balancing standardized approaches while allowing exceptions.
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Fundamentally, the goal is to build maintainable and scalable applications where the shared code makes overall development more efficient.
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Before wrapping up, I want to stress that following the outlined patterns for organizing code has created a productive development environment.
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This has made it so much easier for us to onboard new developers since most tutorials available for React web will be applicable to React Native.
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This familiarity reduces the learning curve and complexities, leading to smoother transitions in projects regardless of the specific platform being worked on.
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What I want to share with you today largely covers architectural insights and practical advice from my experience.
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The productivity gains we’ve seen using this stack have shifted my thinking significantly about when to start integrating native applications into projects.
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There's an ongoing shift to what we realistically expect when supporting both web and native applications, so the changes in approach have become valuable.
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I’ve gone ahead and created a sample project available at cookie-dough.co.uk/railsconf2017 that illustrates this sharing in practice. It includes both iOS and web components along with a Rails API.
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It's open-source, allowing anyone interested to see its workings and explore which parts resonate and which don’t.
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As we wrap up, I want to mention that at Catapult, we are hiring! If you are intrigued by what we've discussed, please reach out to me at [email protected], or let’s grab coffee if you're around London.
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Thank you for listening. If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them now.
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Absolutely! I encourage everyone to ask your questions.
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When it comes to organizing actions in large files, I’m fond of using Redux Source, which is syntactic sugar on top of Redux.
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It provides a framework for breaking down multiple reducer files while maintaining proper structure.
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Great question! To support responsive interfaces for web versions, I initially swayed towards a framework like Bootstrap.
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It simplifies creating mobile-friendly web applications, greatly reducing the complexity involved.
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In parallel, Microsoft has released a framework that permits component definition and chooses between web and mobile layouts.
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How do we handle customization in platforms with diverse components? Honestly, I don't see many display discrepancies.
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Generally, it’s good to lean on React as it handles platform-specific components very well.
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Is service architecture beneficial over old server-side Rails applications? Initially, Rails is quite rapid for prototyping.
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Yet, over time, adopting API servers alongside client-side architectures yields greater maintainability.
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Despite the initial speed of Rails, I've found the efficiency and structure of separating APIs and front-end heavily advantageous.
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When it comes to developing native applications, learning the SDK is essential, but the React Native CLI streamlines this process.
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React Native provides a minimal setup to help kickstart projects without excessive boilerplate.
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As a Rails developer, dealing with boilerplate can be annoying, so I leverage tools like Ignite to automate setups.
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This ensures consistency and organization from the get-go, allowing for easier extraction into NPM packages.
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Lastly, I want to emphasize the importance of managing Babel configurations across projects.
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Babel is a tool that helps transpile modern JavaScript to make it compatible with older browsers, which is crucial for React web applications.
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However, there's a risk of Babel configuration conflicts if not managed carefully, especially when integrating with React Native.
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Realistically, changes to Babel can lead to sporadic runtime errors, so consistent management of the cache is essential.
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I hope this overview captures the critical elements of the architectural decisions we’ve faced while integrating these technologies.
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Ultimately, the changes to our processes have greatly influenced productivity and adaptability for new features.
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I invite any final questions before we wrap things up. The shift in mindset has been transformative.
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What I want to underline is the vital and positive shift we’ve experienced, allowing us to integrate diverse platforms seamlessly.
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Once again, I want to thank you all for participating in this session. It’s been enlightening to share these experiences with you!
