Well, 1, expo isn’t web development at all.
But yes, react and react native are a clusterfuck. They suck terribly with bad developer experiences.
Could just use Tauri and have it be easy peasy.
Swap to Vue.js, you’re welcome.
Dealing with boilerplate is usually a one-time annoyance per project. And everyone hates it. This is one of the reasons why companies like Vercel get so popular. They deal with a lot of that kind of shit for you, so that stuff just works.
Is this simply what web development is like?
No, this is what shitty JS-on-the-server-based web development is like, that all the children insist is the only way of doing things.
Fuck all that noise. Learn PHP.
Yes, there are a lot of setup problems. Especially in new apps and solo projects.
However, in my job this stuff has already been completed. So I just get to build squares with red borders all day.
I guess all the errors you’re encountering are from React Native platform and not web-related. I would suggest moving to pure web technologies and standards developing PWAs, which are as capable as “native” apps these days.
Yes. Easy stuff is easy. But from time to time, you hit this kind of stuff that drains you. The more advanced stuff you build, the more you hit it. Wait to see how it is to have a bug in Angular, where you end up debugging my app and eventually the framework for 2 weeks just to submit my bug request.
Yes. That’s right. The moment when you will be writing code at least 50% of the time will most likely never come. Moreover, if it suddenly happens, it is a very alarming sign. It means that most likely you have become very far from being called a specialist and have become a monkey coder. But there is also good news. Your 80% of searching on StackOverflow will eventually grow into other tasks. You will search for other things, think about other questions. And the code… you will still have to write code, at least occasionally. So don’t worry, you are on the right path.
Impossible to say without seeing what you’ve built.
In general, I’d say it’s usually the difference between architecting something correctly and making a mess.
Anyone can go fast and make a mess starting on a Greenfields project; in fact, new devs/hobbyists are prone to that kind of behavior.
The problem is later on down the line. The longer the project goes on and the more stuff you add, the more difficult working with the code gets. I mean, yes there is some irreducible complexity that comes with software, but architecture will play a significant role in limiting the time you need to spend on issues that aren’t syntax/logic related.
What frustrates me is constantly fixing a seemingly endless onslaught of environment/setup-related issues. For example, right now I’m trying to use the expo-linking module in my expo development build and am getting a “Cannot find native module ExpoLinking” error. “main” has not been registered. “A module has failed to load due to an error and ‘AppRegistry.registerComponent’ wasn’t called.”
Lately it feels like my time spent programming has been 20% actually writing code and 80% jumping between stackoverflow questions trying to resolve issues like this, fiddling with package.json when I don’t really understand what I’m doing. What is the name for this sort of problem?
Yak Shaving? Maybe?
But this sounds like a JS exclusive problem.
If you must stick with JS, I’d recommend migrating or even rewriting in Deno to help alleviate issues. Why?
- Because just like Go, Rust, .NET, Python; Deno has a more robust std lib. So you don’t have to rely on third-party packages as much. Which should give whatever code you write using them more longevity without breaking dependencies for whatever random reason a third-party dev feels like this week.
- Better boilerplate config; most of the shenanigans surrounding things like tsconfig become less of a problem in Deno.
I think things will probably improve next year overall with void(0) Rolldown + OxC. But time will tell.
Yeah, I can feel that. Fixing errors, especially ones you didn’t encounter before, is frustrating. Sometimes, it’s even hard to find a working fix on the web. I actually started to use ChatGPT for that because I had some super annoying environment errors in Python, and in Node.js I had a lot of troubles with ES Modules or similar.
It explained it to me nicely with some example code, and that helped me understand it more. StackOverflow is also great, but in some edge cases it’s not that great.
Usually, I have many projects because sometimes one project becomes annoying, or I have a new idea, so I stop the current project and do the current one. This way, I always have kind of fun… until the new project is annoying too, and I need a break, so I either go back to project 0 or start another one. Kinda silly, but it’s fun.
I too did everything as a hobby learning from YouTube videos, W3Schools, etc., and I’ve been doing this as a hobby for I think 8 years now and recently decided to try doing it professionally. At first, I was hired to program industrial robots, and recently I was even hired as a software developer.
It’s pretty cool because it gives a feeling of success, and if you keep doing what you love and keep exploring new stuff or improving in general, then you will make great stuff.
If you don’t know something, it’s a great opportunity to learn something new and become better in the process.
Tooling that works for you is a pinnacle of a developer’s environment and flow.
Early on, you have both a bad environment and are not sure what tooling you even need. Everything compounds and feels bad.
It is not silly to pivot to a new stack because it has better tooling and integrations.
Identify the true source of the pain point, improve it, and repeat.
I only took my developer environment / DX / tooling with serious understanding and an efficiency mindset after many projects and years of figuring out what I want and need to be productive and remain in flow.
Eliminate dependency where you can. Where you cannot, understand the dependency deeply. I’m counting tooling as a project dependency here. I have very little of these issues because I started writing more code and including less from external projects. It drove entropy and ‘rot’ down dramatically.
I think part of this is that React Native and Expo are making something that is WAY complicated into something that is easier. Writing code that compiles to web, Android, and iOS is a big feat… if you didn’t have those tools, it would mean 3 careers worth of knowledge being solved by React Native and Expo.
Yup. And I didn’t even see anything about clients, designers, project managers, or account managers in the post. You’re not even touching the human aspect of the industry yet…
I would suggest not following video tutorials anymore and focus on the technology’s actual documentation.
For example, if I haven’t touched Expo in a while and I’m ready to do a project on it, I’ll read a big portion of Expo’s docs before starting my project, and I’ll reference it all the time while starting up. That way helps you to get an actual understanding of the technology you are working with.
Every tech has their docs, with variable levels of depth.
Ditch the frameworks.
Welcome to modern-day React Native development.
Go for Frontend Masters, try out the beginner roadmap. I just subscribed and started exploring, learning so much from actual pros.
Your first problem is touching React, but that’s my 2 cents.