Last year, the big front end began to surface. This year, the trend of big front end has become more and more obvious, with endless cross-platform technologies emerging. First-tier conferences such as QCon and GMTC began to set big front end issues. This is all telling us that the big front end is coming.
Some we-media have started to look down on native development: “Look, the Android student has hanged himself”, “I heard that iOS developers are no longer wanted”, these comments frequently appear in various communities, causing extreme anxiety for native developers. Before, we only need to learn native development, but now, native development has not learned, the big front wave is coming, we become anxious, scared, at a loss, worried that one day they will be eliminated.
As a native developer, I have some knowledge of Android, iOS and the front end, and I am certainly good at Android development. To this day, I’m a bit of a celebrity in the Android space. My popularity is due to Android. I should be more afraid of the big front end than most people, but on the contrary, I have no fear.
Why is that? Because NOW I understand the big front end. I haven’t spoken out publicly about big Front-end, because I’m afraid of misrepresenting people. For the past six months, I’ve been looking at the big front end, including technology and industry trends, in order to one day understand them and write an article that will show you the way.
To stay on topic, let’s talk about why we should be happy.
First of all, heroes are made in troubled times. Today’s Android and iOS space is already stable and dominated by technology giants, making it difficult for newcomers to stand out. But look at the big front end and there is no recognised champion. This means that novices have another chance to rise as long as they work hard. If you’re not good at Android, why not shine in the big front end?
Second, the big front end, while aggressive, has its drawbacks: existing cross-platform solutions have major drawbacks.
ReactNative and Weex: The implementation efficiency of Facebook and Alibaba’s solution is hard, it is a consensus that the home page cannot use RN, and there is still a gap in unifying Android and iOS code.
Flutter: The Google solution does not support online thermal repair and does not match the natural dynamic nature of the cross-platform solution. Flutter is currently in preview phase and is expected to be released soon.
PWA: Google’s scheme unified the three terminals in a pure Web way, which is a good idea. However, it needs to use Google Play Service and browser support. Most foreign Android phones and new versions of iOS can support PWA. Unfortunately, as far as I know about domestic ecology, domestic browsers cannot uniformly support PWA.
Wechat mini program: Tencent’s solution, which belongs to the ecological closed loop within wechat, is destined to be unable to become a unified solution in the world. It is more suitable for small tools and small games, which are generally used as the extension entrance of the original APP.
Obviously, cross-platform technology needs to evolve, and it will take time, but I can sum it all up in one sentence: The big front wheel will zigzag, and there’s plenty of time left
My advice to native developers, in a word: 7 points for native development and 3 points for the big front end
How does the big front end learn? Learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript first, and then learn about the various cross-platform solutions. The learning process doesn’t have to go very far, just get started, and by the time the big front end really arrives, you’ll be way ahead of most people (if they’re still reading this).
You don’t have to worry, you just have to be happy, do what you have to do, you can deal with all the changes, and I will always stand by you. Also, if you think this article is helpful to you, please like and retweet it. This is the best support for me.
