Rob Fahrni

There is this weird part of me that wants to go back to writing cross platform C++. All of my cross platform work was for Windows and Linux. The itch has been there since I moved to iOS code — and I spent [two years in between iOS dev jobs working on a cross platform SDK for Pelco’s video encoding, decoding, and recording devices, all in C++. It never made it to Linux but I spent a whole lotta time working on Pelco’s X SDK. That was our version of a cross platform SDK we used internally to build a cool pipeline framework called MPF, or Media Processing Framework.

Why the draw. I’m not sure, but I think it’s probably because it’s the language I know best and I did a lot of work with the Windows API, which was also a strong suit.

I still haven’t, and don’t think I ever will, embrace the Mac like I did Windows. At the time I was a Windows dev the platform was simple, before COM and OLE 2.0. The Windows API was so straightforward.

None of that is true any longer. Not for Windows or C++. I bet I wouldn’t even recognize modern C++. C++ 11 changed A LOT in the language and it’s only advanced since. As for the Windows API, folks still use it but you should be doing something different, like using WinUI 3.

The thing is, I REALLY want to complete Stream for Mac and my new super top secret project: Rooster. Yeah, it’s not so top secret, and I finally gave it a code name, but if you know me you can probably suss out what it would be given my love of blogging.

Microsoft: “React Native isn’t just for mobile! Check out how the Windows 11 Settings app is leveraging React Native for Windows to deliver new features and capabilities to users faster and with the same great visual fidelity as Windows 11.”

I find it so strange Microsoft would choose to use React Native for features in the OS. They have C#/.NET which is a wonderful choice and highly optimized for Windows development. It also works with Windows UI 3.0.

The only reasons I can come up with are: 1) they’d like to demonstrate it can be done. 2) they don’t have developers working on this “feature” with the skill set required to do it in C++ or C#?

That second one is a real stretch but I just can’t resolve in my own brain why you’d choose this over your own tools?

Red Shift: “So let’s cause some drama and ruffle some feathers, and talk about why Flutter is better than React Native… in all the ways that don’t matter.”

One glaring downside to Flutter is it doesn’t do native UI. It’s all rendered by them. That is a pretty crummy thing to do.

I could see giving this a go for RxCalc if it used native controls. It has decent support for using C++ libraries and RxCalc’s calculations are C++.

Ward Abbas: ”After 3.5 years of working at Wix, mobile R&D, infrastructure team and as an ex-owner of react-native-navigation, i can shed the light on many issues directly related to the RN architecture (new and old) and indirect stuff that the framework can easily cause bad stuff more than good.”

More negative feedback about React Native.

Part of my consternation regarding React Native is the ecosystem seems “loosey-goosey.”

Lots of node dependencies dragged along for the ride and node has its own issues.

However, to make things better you have to get involved.