Łukasz uses Airbnb’s 2018 articles about sunsetting React Native as a starting point for discussing business readiness in 2023. He says organizational challenges such as team collaboration, leadership, and training remain relevant, but can be addressed. He argues that React Native’s technical state has improved, with community work filling gaps that once made it harder to use in production.
React Native EU 2023 Keynote
Speakers
Łukasz Chludziński of Callstack, with Meta engineers Alex Hunt and Riccardo Cipolleschi, opens React Native EU 2023 in Poland with a case for React Native’s business readiness and updates planned for version 0.73.
Alex describes planned Metro improvements in React Native 0.73, including stable symlink support enabled by default and better support for Xcode and Android builds in template projects. He also presents a first-party debugger based on Chrome DevTools, launched from the Dev Menu or CLI, with Hermes buffering console logs until a debugger connects. The team plans to expand debugging features over time and begin deprecating React Native’s built-in Flipper integration as the default; new projects are planned to stop including it by default in 0.74.
Łukasz outlines preparation for Android 14 and iOS 17, including a move from JDK 11 to 17 on Android and a higher minimum iOS version, from 12.4 to 13.4. He recommends Upgrade Helper to handle configuration changes. The React Native template is also planned to use Kotlin for MainActivity and MainApplication, reducing those files’ code size by nearly 30 percent.
Riccardo says the New Architecture remains experimental and asks developers to try it and share feedback rather than use it in production. React Native 0.73 is planned to include an interop layer that acts as a bridge proxy, allowing teams to migrate native modules and components incrementally. He also describes replacing view managers with static view configs generated by Codegen.
Takeaways
- Assess React Native against your product’s needs and organizational constraints; Airbnb’s 2018 experience is not a universal verdict.
- Plan for Metro symlink support and review native project configuration when upgrading to React Native 0.73.
- Use Hermes with the first-party debugger to access buffered console logs when connecting after the app starts.
- Treat the New Architecture as experimental and test its interop layer against your app before planning a migration.
- Kotlin templates reduce boilerplate in the Android entry-point files, while Android 14 and iOS 17 preparation may require configuration updates.
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What was claimed 12
- role atAndrew Sheves role at
Callstack“the headquarters of Callstack”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- role atRiccardo Cipolleschi is Core team member at
Meta“I'm from the Meta Core team.”
0:13inIt's Not New Anymore: How New Architecture Unlocks React 19YouTube Verified5 sources· Talk
- featureReact Native: Production-ready framework
“businesses adopting it can rely on React Native as a production-ready framework”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricReact Native: Downloads of the newest version rose by 40% in three months
“downloads of the newest version rose by 40% in just three months”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- role at
“I’m Alex, a software engineer at Meta”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native 0.73: symlinks enabled by default, with Xcode and Android build support in template projectssymlinks enabled by default, with Xcode and Android build support in template projects
“symlinks will be enabled by default”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native 0.73: first-party debugger frontend based on Chrome DevToolsfirst-party debugger frontend based on Chrome DevTools
“our new first-party debugger frontend”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- feature
Hermes Agent: Buffers console.log calls while no debugger is connected and sends them when one connects“Hermes now collects all console.log calls in the background”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- usesExpo uses React DevTools
“Expo made the switch to Chrome DevTools earlier this year”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native: built-in integration deprecated as the default debugging tool; new projects stop including integration code by default in 0.74built-in integration deprecated as the default debugging tool; new projects stop including integration code by default in 0.74
“In 0.74, new projects will no longer include Flipper's integration code by default”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native 0.73: Kotlin introduced in template projects, replacing Java in MainActivity and MainApplicationKotlin introduced in template projects, replacing Java in MainActivity and MainApplication
“rewrite our MainActivity and MainApplication files from Java to Kotlin”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native 0.73: experimental interop layer allows incremental migration from the bridgeexperimental interop layer allows incremental migration from the bridge
“you can update incrementally instead of updating everything in one sweep”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
