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Comment by namanyayg | Hacker News Reader

Nice work on the launch, rudolfs! any chance this is inspired by shipfa.st?

One thing that caught my eye is that you're using expo - how do you handle the tradeoff between expo's ease of use and its potential limitations? do you have any plans to support non-expo react native projects in the future?

And have you used flutter? I've used both rn and flutter, and i found flutter to offer much superior dx

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Many years ago I tried Flutter. I had to stackoverflow every single thing because dash is a language that nobody uses (maybe it is easier now with chatgpt but this was before openai releases it). In comparison React Native feels familiar to anyone who has uses React (with in 2024 is pretty much everyone who has done anything in frontend) and you only need to read a fairly short documentation explaining the core components https://reactnative.dev/docs/components-and-apis

Regarding Expo, I found the the easiest and most sane way to get iOS compilation working. It worked for me and got it set up in < 1h. Just getting Xcode to work took me way more and I don't even use xcode to code wtf

dart*

Yes, it is inspired by shipfa.st but for mobile development. Well if there are more than 1 people who also want support for non-expo version I'll probably make also that, no problem.

About flutter, yes I have used it a year ago but for my use case it didn't work very well so I switched to React Native.

from your experience, what are the pros and cons of expo vs no expo ?

I only have experience with no expo react-native development

Expo makes it super easy to get started with React Native, offering quick setup, built-in tools, and easy updates, which is great for simple apps or prototypes. However, it comes with some limitations, like larger app sizes and less flexibility with native code. On the flip side, using bare React Native gives you complete control, better performance, and access to the latest features, but it requires more setup and can be a bit more challenging. The choice really depends on whether you need speed and simplicity or full control and customization.

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