React Native 0.61 Fast Refresh – A Game Changer for Mobile App Dev

What is React Native?

In React Native 0.61 the existing live reloading and hot reloading features are merging into one new feature called Fast Refresh. React Native is a JavaScript tool for writing different IOS and Android smartphone applications, rendering them natively. It’s based on React, the JavaScript framework for building user interfaces on Facebook, but rather than targeting the browser. It’s tailored to web platforms. React Native applications are built using a JavaScript and XML- Esque markup blend, called JSX, close to Internet React. They also expose JavaScript interfaces to device APIs, allowing React Native applications to access platform functionality such as a phone camera or location for the user. React Native supports both IOS and Android, and also has the ability to extend to future platforms.

The development of cross-platform apps has become a preferred choice for developers & investors in developing mobile apps. React Native is generally regarded as a cross-platform technology future. It has become the norm worldwide for mobile app development services.

What is the advantage of React Native?

React Native easily makes use of its host platform’s standard rendering APIs. It helps make it stand out from other application development systems around the web. Existing mobile application development methods that use combinations of JavaScript, HTML and CSS usually render using web views. In addition to Angular, and Vue, React is a vital technology that has significantly changed the way we develop web applications.

Actually, React Native converts your markup into actual, native UI elements, leveraging existing ways to render views on whatever platform you work with. React Native also reflects an advancement in two other areas over standard mobile development: the app experience and the ability for cross-platform development.

Developer Experience:

The React Native team has built in the platform good developer tools and clear error messages so interacting with stable tools is a natural part of the development experience. React Native is all JavaScript, and you don’t have to rebuild your code to see your changes mirrored. Instead, click Command+R to refresh your application. Although, React Native has the ability to also have a beneficial impact on the product development process for better development experience.

Code Reuse and Knowledge Sharing:

Working with React Native will reduce drastically the resources required to create mobile apps. Apart from mutual information, you can share much of the code too. All the code cannot be cross-platform like React Native. You just need to tap into Objective-C or Java, depending on what features you need on a particular platform.

Few essential features of React Native 0.61 versions

The UseWindowDimensions Hook:

React Native 0.61 comes out with the useWindowDimensions feature integration. This hook feature also allows the developer to provide updates of the window dimension instantly and subscribe to them.

Advanced compatibility with the CocoaPods:

In the React Native 0.60, CocoaPods was implemented as a default feature, resulting in fragmented builds using the framework.

Fast Refresh:

The reloading feature has been a major hit among developers that allows fast updating of apps.

Modular programming:

Modular programming is a design technique that divides the program’s functionality into different independent and equivalent blocks, called modules. This Modular architecture however helps developers to update and do a quick change in mobile devices.

React is upgraded:

React is now upgraded to 16.9

What was before Fast Refresh?

Live Reloading and Hot Reloading were the two options earlier:

Live reloading means reloading or restoring the whole program if a file changes whereas Hot Reloading just refreshes all files that have been updated without losing the app’s state. It reloads your app in runtime and within seconds you can see improvements to your app, but the Hot Reloading functionality has broken down. For feature elements, it didn’t work consistently, and also failed to refresh the computer. It was too unreliable and because of all these problems, the feature was updated.

React Native 0.61 Fast Refresh

With React Native 0.61, they merged it into a single new feature called “Fast Reload” with the existing “live reloading” and “hot reloading” features.

The following are the principles of Fast Refresh :

  • Fast Refresh fully embraces modern reactions like feature and hook elements.
  • After typos and other mistakes, Fast Refresh recovers and falls back to a complete reload when needed.
  • Fast Refresh does not perform intrusive code transformations so that by default it is stable enough to be on.

Points about React Native 0.61 Fast Refresh

  1. By contrast, Fast Refresh retains local state React to task components.
  2. You can add a special // @refresh reset comment to refresh the React state on any number of changes.
  3. Fast Refresh also removes components from class without maintaining or preserving the state. It means that it is operating efficiently.
  4. Fast Refresh retries the rendering automatically after you save a file. You don’t need to restart the software manually, after fixing the bug or error.
  5. A neat debugging technique is adding a console.log or debugger statement during edits.

Why React Native 0.61 Fast Refresh called Game changer?

  • React Native redefines the concept of cross-platform development and reusing code.
  • This React Native relies heavily on language basics and is therefore highly readable, so even for new developers, it is incredibly easy to understand and follow.
  • React Native operates by embedding and running JavaScript files locally in the program. As a simple plugin, developers can add any new functionality without modifying the entire code.
  • React Native provides a  great environment for development and offers a supportive developer experience.
  • React Native lets you update directly, without having to go through the app store

Conclusion

However, React Native is an exciting platform that enables Web developers to use their existing JavaScript expertise to build robust mobile applications. It provides faster mobile development. Although most projects can benefit from the benefits that React Native provides. It provides quicker device development and more effective sharing of code across IOS, Android, and the Internet, without compromising the experience or application quality of end-users. With advantages such as genuinely native efficiency and shorter development cycles, the lead will be driven by React Native. Moreover, without investing enormous money, React Native allows the companies to build a cross-platform app with native features.