You may think that the reason for me not getting to code so far is because of looking after the little man. Whilst you would be correct to a certain extent, as you can see, he’s pretty chilled!
So what’s stopping me?
Mobile development.
Before babies, I wrote an app called Swrl List for Android which paired up with swrl.co (a recommendation site started by Daniel Flower, Sam Atkinson and myself).
You have noticed by clicking the link that swrl.co is dead, and so are the online features of Swrl List 😦
I always wanted to make Swrl List compatible with iOS, and as I wrote it in Java originally, this should be a great opportunity to re-write it in a cross platform language.
Firing up my Mac I get started. Never done iOS development before, so need to get XCode off the App Store.
Errm, what’s that Apple… I need to upgrade my OS from High Sierra to Mojave to even download it?! I’m pretty sure I can survive coding in light theme…
Biting the bullet and upgrading to Mojave, two hours later my Mac is all dark and ready to go!
Now what language/framework/build tool to use.
Asking a fellow Dad who runs a company who make phone apps for companies, he suggested I look at react-native and Google Firebase. And oh boy, do they sound great! Free databases, authentication, notifications, cross compilation, easy to write, UIs… All a few clicks and dependencies away! They certainly sell the dream.
Installing react-native, easy peasy following the guide. Launch up iOS emulator, and boom! Hot loading works straight out the bat, so far so good. I mean, the project is huge and all the commands created many magic files- but for anyone who’s done Android development before will be used to that!
What could possibly go wrong? More on that, next blog…
Daddy Coder 