I'm very excited to announce that I'll be speaking at the Swift Rockies conference for iOS developers next July in Calgary. This will be my first conference presentation in over five years!
My talk is titled My Slow Return to a Swift Career. I'm pecking away at it (I have a half year to prepare) but it will be part "career retrospective" and part "technical deep dive comparing React Native to native iOS development." My native iOS development experience stretches back to iPhoneOS 3.1. I still know UIKit like the back of my hand. But I have a lot of experience with React Native, too: I helped migrate Artsy's native iOS app to become hybrid native/React Native, I built an entire SDK on top of React Native at Shopify, and I led the team that build Float's mobile app from scratch.
I recently started a job at Wealthsimple where my focus is on mobile user experiences. I'm using native iOS technologies again a lot and I'm really enjoying it!
As a whole, it's fair to say that the iOS developer community dislikes React Native. But the complaints I hear about React Native tend to either over-generalize or exaggerate its problems. I bring a nuanced perspective with more... interesting complaints.
I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope to see you in Calgary!