Role of Web Based Technologies In Maximizing Code Sharing In Your Applications

Developer Support

In this post, Premier Developer Consultant Wael Kdouh shares ideas of the alternatives to reduce web complexity and increase code sharing. He does a side-by-side comparison of Cordova/Iconic, NativeScript, and React Native to help you explore some of your options to reduce complexity.


I was recently approached by a colleague of mine with the following question: “What are the available alternatives to reduce the current complexity of developing for multiple channels?”. In a nutshell he was looking for ways to maximize the amount of client code shared among iOS, Android and Web channels while still being able to use native mobile features if/when needed. So here is the answer I shared with him which I thought would be beneficial for the wider community (not to mention that we love open sourcing everything here at Microsoft these days including our internal discussion threads).

The first question I typically start with is “What are they trying to build”? For example if they require squeezing out every bit of performance then native will always come on top.

The second question I ask is “What is their developers’ skillset”? Now in this case they are coming from native development so they may be open to either C#/XAML or JavaScript(or TypeScript)/CSS/html.

The fact that he threw in the word web presence mixed with requirement for a consolidated code base makes the web sound like a viable option (we still need to address the two aforementioned questions). There are a lot of options with the web today (this could be a good thing or bad thing depending on how you look at it).

Read more of Wael’s post here to explore these options.

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