Comment by hoodoof | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hoodoof | Hacker News Reader

It's a strange thing that this targets react-native

react-native, despite one of its core values probably being cross platform support, is extremely disinterested in providing anything but OSX support. Check out the wording from their site: https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/linux-windows-s...

""As React Native on iOS requires a Mac and most of the engineers at Facebook and contributors use Macs, support for OS X is a top priority. However, we would like to support developers using Linux and Windows too. We believe we'll get the best Linux and Windows support from people using these operating systems on a daily basis.

Therefore, Linux and Windows support for the development environment is an ongoing community responsibility.""

Which is to say "At Facebook we like Macs, we have Macs. Maybe someone else who likes Windows will build for Windows and Linux. Go ask them to do it."

I was recently looking for a cross platform development environment and was very interested in react-native but I completely lost interest after reading about their attitude to non-OSX support.

(I work on React.)

Facebook works on tools that help Facebook. We like to give back to the community whenever we can. Unlike most other platforms, our end goal is not building and making tools or technology. Instead, we build whatever helps us make better products.

This means that (IMO) we end up with higher-quality tools. It also means that we focus on the use cases that are important to us which occasionally differs from what's most important to the community. (Though even if you look at what the community has voted for, Linux and Windows support doesn't even make the list: https://productpains.com/product/react-native/?tab=top&.)

Since most developers at FB use Macs, that's what we supported first. If there's community interest in React Native running on Windows and Linux (and there is), we'll happily take pull requests that add support, and I see no reason why we can't make sure the support doesn't regress after it's merged.

I'm not sure why this strategy is upsetting to you. As a point of comparison, Rust's Windows support lagged behind for many years and what it did have was community-supported. Now, Windows has caught up and it will remain a first-class target for them. I expect React Native to end up in the same place within the next few months.

I'm not sure why you think that Facebook should support other platforms? It's open source and free of charge to you. Doesn't it make sense that they are going to support only the platform that they use and are mostly interested in?

We added CodePush support for React Native because we think it's an extremely compelling platform and so do many of our customers. I actually respect Facebook's pragmatic approach to software development prioritization, and they work so closely with the community to allow other objectives/goals to be achieved (e.g. Windows support) That seems like a great way to run an OSS project to me.

I think it's pretty clear that this is aimed at mobile, not desktop development (note they are pushing Cordova).

In that context it makes a lot of sense: Microsoft wants any kind of apps on Windows Mobile, and I believe Cordova/React works fine for that.

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