Comment by calsy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by calsy | Hacker News Reader

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why are you touching the generated native code?

I use a good amount of phonegap plugins (admob, google analytics, location, device orientation, dialogs, storage, accessibility) and they work as well I could hope with few minor hurdles. Its programming, there are always hurdles and I've had the least friction with phonegap

You native loving devs miss the entire point, phonegap and cordova exist and survive because of the nightmare of developing apps across multiple platforms. Any perceived benefit you get by going native is lost by the compounding pain of developing across multiple platforms.

I have developed my phonegap apps to the point where an average user can't tell the difference between it and native for the most part. I can deploy it across ios, android, windows and even a desktop app on my mac by running a few gulp commands. Its used by half a million people across multiple platforms and in multiple countries and it took a total of 1 person to create.

Now when I read about people saying it should be deprecated, I cant help but laugh. Phonegap has allowed me to make enough money from my work that I quit my regular job as a software dev drone in an office taking orders from some crappy boss stuck in some agile nightmare of meetings and shit talking. I am now my own boss and I can do my work anywhere I wish. Tell me, why wouldn't anyone choose that path?

I gave you a clear set of reasons I dislike and will not use Cordova, but I feel like you're just using it as a shield. I mean seriously, Cordova is the reason you're not a "drone in an office?" Give me a break. How about all the people who are using Cordova in their Agile drone office? It's great that you've been able to get into your own thing, but plenty of, for instance, native mobile devs have done the same. Or non mobile devs. Or full stack. Heck, I too have written, by myself, native Android and iOS apps, and their backends. I don't think that's saying a whole lot.

Where did I say I was touching generated code, the cordova.js thing? Because I was trying to find the cause of our slow load in the app and stumbled through their init process into that issue.

The native plugins are usually good, as you mentioned, but don't cover more complex use cases. No, I'm not going to go through and talk about all of them -- this is two or three years ago now. We wrote native plugins for the features we needed that weren't available for our use cases, and it seems likely that any advanced app will end up needing to.

Your point about "compounding pain" is exactly how I feel about Cordova, because as I mentioned, it's as complex if not more in a hybrid app. You're fighting the build system, the js engine, the layout engine, etc. It's not as though you get it all for free because it's javascript.

It's great to enjoy your tools, and again, I'm glad you're able to make an independent living off it, but to claim that it's some sort of life changing tool the whole mobile world needs to take more seriously isn't realistic. And again, as far as new development, I'd love to hear people who are considering going the hybrid route chime in, but I at least don't know of anyone or any companies who are or would go that route.

Never fought the build, javascript is as complicated as you decide to make it, I can deploy my app to a new platform with a few commands, I do not have to learn to write a new app each time I want to deploy on a new platform.

The plugins are interfaces to the device APIs, what complexity did you encounter that was so far out the scope of the device APIs? I use many plugins and for many complex tasks, why are your's more complex?

You mention this was 3 years ago like somehow these platforms remained static in the time you last used them. 3 years is incredibly long time in mobile development. Phonegap/cordova community has grown, more plugins are available and js engines on mobile have improved immensely.

You are stating phonegap/cordova is not a viable alternative for the future and I say it is. That was the whole point about mentioning my work. You not liking it and 'not knowing anyone who is using it in the future' is purely anecdotal. Obviously each project has its own ambitions, costs and timeframes to consider, but limiting possible paths to a solution is not a good idea. Do your own dev, but there is no need to deprecate a framework for others because you had a bad experience once.

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