Guide: update react native page #13004
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replace outdated info on Expo with up to date information
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| You can "eject" your app from Expo to take advantage of Vanilla React Native features, but ejection cannot be undone easily. | ||
| > If you are already familiar with mobile development, you may want to use React Native CLI. It requires Xcode or Android Studio to get started. If you already have one of these tools installed, you should be able to get up and running within a few minutes. If they are not installed, you should expect to spend about an hour installing and configuring them. |
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Personal opinion here: the distinction in the RN guide is broad and lacks true direction. It isn't about whether someone has previously done "native development" or not. It is about the requirements of the app they are going to build. If they likely will require some type of changes at the "native level", then consider invoking XCode and Android Studio. But even that can be done both with RN CLI and Expo CLI, and it can be done when needed, not at the start of a project.
My main concern with most things that discuss RN is that they way too quickly get into this differentiation (what has historically been called "ejecting") without clearly describing whether this is needed or not.
Though I don't have experience with Meteor, I suspect there is nothing in use of Meteor that requires use of XCode and Android Studio, especially if one is to be using Expo.
I guess my real question for this document is: what is the goal here? To tell people everything there is to know about RN and Expo, or is it to help them get started building an RN/Expo project for using Meteor?
If it is the latter, I would recommend simply mentioning that there are 2 ways to go, but that this document will focus on one (I prefer Expo). People who have experience with native development will have no problems going from an Expo project to an RN or even "native" project. But people who are new both both Meteor and Expo/RN would be wisest to start with Expo.
In my mind, the goal here is to "get people started with Meteor on mobile devices". I would from that go with "less is more" -- that is, don't try to cover every angle in the Meteor docs. Cover one "happy path" and let more experienced developers deal with whatever paths they follow away from that happy path.
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| > If you are new to mobile development, the easiest way to get started is with Expo Go. | ||
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| Expo is an [open-source framework](https://github.com/expo/expo) for apps that run natively on Android, iOS, and the web. The `expo` npm package enables a suite of incredible features for React Native apps. The `expo` package can be installed in nearly any React Native project. See [what Expo offers](https://docs.expo.dev/core-concepts/) for more information or see [why does Expo have its own SDK](https://docs.expo.dev/faq/#why-does-expo-have-its-own-sdk). |
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Personally I'd remove the world "incredible" from the second sentence. Maybe "productive" or "useful" or possibly "powerful"....but "incredible" is not informative and risks showing bias.
| Once you have your environment setup and have your app running on your device or in the emulator, you can proceed to the next step of the guide: "Meteor React Native Installation" | ||
| The React Native guide to get started describes this workflow as following: | ||
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| > If you are new to mobile development, the easiest way to get started is with Expo Go. |
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Since this is what the RN guide recommends, I would suggest putting this towards the very start of this document. New developers typically start with the first thing that seems like "instructions" in a document. If the first instruction says "use RN CLI", that's where they start, regardless of the other words that go around it 😄
Replaces outdated info on Expo with up to date information