Harini Kannan on React Native - Episode 129

Feb 22, 2021

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Joining Jeffrey today is Harini Kannan! Harini is a Program Manager in the Windows Developer Experiences and Platform team — a fast-moving and exciting team at Microsoft! Her team’s charter influences a lot of different technologies from WinUI to XAML to WPF to React Native for Windows, and more! Their team connects everything around enabling the Windows native UI stack to be the best, most powerful, and the most modern technology that people can target to build really solid apps for Windows. They’re always jumping on the latest technology and trying to give people the latest stuff with the best quality!

Over the last two years, the team has been building an incredible, one-of-a-kind collaboration across many other teams within Microsoft, with the goal of bringing React Native to Windows.

In their conversation together, Jeffrey and Harini dive into everything that her team does regarding React Native (as well as lots of other topics when it comes to rich and stateful native applications!) She shares how to build, deploy, and operate with React Native for Windows, the team’s journey of adapting React Native to work on Windows, and shares her recommendations on getting started.

Topics of Discussion:

[:38] Be sure to visit AzureDevOps.Show for past episodes and show notes.

[1:00] About The Azure DevOps Podcast, Clear Measure, and Jeffrey’s offer to speak at virtual user groups.

[1:20] Clear Measure is hiring! Be sure to check out the link in the show notes.

[1:29] About Jeffrey’s newest podcast, Architect Tips! If you would like your question to be answered on Architect Tips, you can submit it at: ArchitectTips.ClearMeasure.com!

[1:47] About today’s episode with Harini Kannan.

[2:12] Jeffrey welcomes Harini to The Azure DevOps Podcast.

[2:10] Harini gives a rundown of what she does within the Windows Developer Experiences and Platform team and what the team is currently focusing on.

[4:18] Harini introduces herself, shares career highlights, and how she has arrived at Microsoft in her current role.

[5:44] Over the last decade, the development technologies have fallen out of the forefront. Would Harini say that it is truly coming back?

[7:58] What is React Native?

[9:08] Harini shares about the team’s journey of adapting React Native to work on Windows.

[9:47] Harini shares a public example of React Native apps for Windows.

[11:19] When it comes to React Native, does it matter what you have on the server-side or what it calls out to?

[11:32] What does the common integrated development environment (IDE) look like for React Native? What does the code structure look like when put in source control?

[13:56] Is the general layout HTML and CSS?

[15:07] For automated testing, do the Javascript testing libraries work? And for the things that are intertwined with those controls, where you have to have the application running, what is the applicable testing scenario? And what are the tools that work? How does this all play out in this application type?

[16:31] Full system testing has been one of those things that still isn’t finished. Harini shares her comments and insights on this topic and where she sees the future of full system testing going.

[18:35] A word from Azure DevOps Podcast’s sponsor: Clear Measure.

[19:05] When packaging up a React Native application, is there anything special that one thinks about across Android, IoS, and Windows, when preparing that build for deployment into the app stores?

[20:00] What does it mean to embed into a Windows Native app? What does that look like?

[22:21] How much of React Native is Javascript or Typescript translated to Javascript?

[23:13] Are most of the apps that Harini has spoken about thus far, Typescript?

[23:30] When does Harini recommend Typescript over Javascript?

[24:25] What are some of the ways to get these apps on Windows computers?

[25:05] What does the telemetry or the observability story look like for React Native? What might have special support in React Native from knowing what your users are doing?[26:45] How should people think about feature flags with React Native?

[28:10] What’s next for React Native?

[30:33] How React Native interacts with Xamarin.

[31:55] Does Harini have any insider information on why some people choose another technology over React Native?

[34:26] Harini recommends some go-to resources to learn more!

[35:40] Jeffrey thanks Harini Kannan for joining the podcast!

Mentioned in this Episode:

Architect Tips — New video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

bit.ly/dotnetdevopsebook — Click here to download the .NET DevOps for Azure ebook!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Youtube