Aloha, schmeags! Man it’s good to be typing away at another blog post. For those of you keeping score, the blog/week ratio has really taken a hit over the past couple weeks. Why oh why, you ask, am I so negligent in my XFA duties? After all, I am just sitting in my room with nothing to do other than homework and programming. I’ll leave that one as an exercise to the reader.
Before I go any further doing a quasi-tech review of a variety of online goodies, I would like to inform you all that I got a new keyboard, and my typing speed is quite frankly blazing like it’s 420. After spending ~100 million hours coding with my laptop keyboard, I came to the realization that laptop keyboards really just have tremendously disappointing finger-feel, which experts agree is essential for building up the muscle memory necessary to type with extreme velocity. Anyway, to narrate an unarguably mundane sequence of events, I hopped onto Amazon and snooped around for a good-looking keyboard. And for those of you on the edge of your seats, the one I found blew all expectations out of the water. Not only does it have some of the best finger-feel I’m experience in my 74 years of life, but it also has rainbow backlighting, which is so tremendously psychedelic that I’m almost convinced I’m out clubbing every time I clack away at a key.
But you ain’t here to hear about no keyboard. No, I know what you content gremlins are looking for. I know your heart of hearts and soul of souls. I know you’re tired of seeing dank memes and unreasonably hot Instagram models lurking in your feeds. I know you’re tired of seeing updates about your best friends’ lives on the ol’ CountenanceManuscript (10 points for anyone who figures that one out). No, you don’t want that. What you want is for some schmeag (me!!) to speak into your inner-self truths about a variety of open AND closed source pieces of software that are making my life a time and a half right now.
And I, being a gracious and merciful meta-digital blogging machine, will oblige. The first piece of software on the docket is React js. “But Danny,” I hear you wonderful yet programmatically naïve readers saying, “haven’t you already told us like a million times about your love affair with React Native?” Well, readers, let me first take offense to that question and humbly assert that while my love life isn’t exactly a rainbow circus, I’ve never had sexual feelings for a piece of software, so I most certainly have never had a love affair with React Native. I would consider React Native to be most akin to an old friend that makes the other pieces of software on my tech stack jealous because of our staggering level of emotional intimacy.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let me now address your actual question, namely what the frack is the difference between React Native and React JS? While I do know the difference, I’m going to sneak in a wee lil google search real quick to get a proper history for you enraptured readers. Aight. Google gave me the answers for which I sought. Good boy, Google. Don’t steal my soul when you gain consciousness.
So React JS is a open-sourced library for building web applications. What is a web application? Well, its an application on the web. Reddit comes to mind. To get suffocatingly nitty-gritty, the internet will tell you that a Web Application is any website in which the user can access and manipulate restricted data. So basically, React JS is what you want to use for building interactive web applications that show up in your browser. React Native, on the other hand, is an open-source library which allows you to create mobile applications, which of course are the little bois you know and love that you download on your phone.
“Danny, I know what the difference is between a web app and a mobile app. Stop treating me like I’m a child.” OK, bitter reader. Shade received. I simply thought I would be more precise with my definitions for the less nerdy members of my audience, but message received. Forgive me for trying to be helpful when you’re the one who so desperately craves schmeagy software reviews.
For the rest of you readers, forgive the previous interaction I’m having with the more bitter readers of this blog. You non-bitter readers are treasured, and unsurprisingly, I like you more than the bitter ones.
Ok, back to React js. Also wait. No one calls it React js. Everyone just calls it React. Shoot, I gotta get with the times. Let me restart.
Ok, back to React. Why am I using React now? You guessed it! I’m building a web app. I’ve reached a point with SSAP (super-secret app project) in which I’m largely done with the actual mobile app. However, the mobile app was just the beginning. For reasons I’m strictly prohibited by myself from talking about, this app requires an online interface for paying customers, which means I’m diving back into proper web development for the first time since I built this here blog.
As a side note for the extremely select few of you who have actually used these tools, let me just vent for quick second. Call me a deagy leag, but React Native’s Stylesheet class is like a million times better than CSS. For some stupid reason, I still haven’t gotten an intuitive feel for CSS, so my html elements basically show up wherever the frick they want on the page while I desperately try to subdue them, not unlike a soft-spoken shepherd attempts to corral his sheep shortly after learning that the sheep have all simultaneously acquired a taste for human flesh.
Ok back to the React and web apps. Actually, shoot dang. I’ve pretty well said what needs to be said. Actually one more thing. I’m also using a framework called Next js, which has been used by the likes of Netflix, Starbucks, Uber, Twitch. Because I’m a raging github, I still don’t fully appreciate all the blessing Next js provides when developing web apps, and all the horrific transgressions that it prevents, so I’ll just innocently say that it’s pretty neat.
Let’s switch gears.
Alright lads and lasses, and whatever the gender-neutral equivalent is to “lads and lasses,” take a seat ‘round here campfire and let me tell you a thing or two about AWS. What’s AWS? Amazon Frickin Web Frickin Services. Now those of you out there who aren’t aspiring to be full-stack developers you probably just think of Amazon as the wonderful little multi-billion dollar fairy that brings you the cool stuff you want like it’s a perpetual frikin Christmas. Well, readers, let me spin you a lil tail about the Amazon that you might not have heard about.
So a couple and half years ago, Amazon started Amazon Web Services. I’ll spare you the heart-throbbing love-story that is the history of AWS, and skip to the juicy stuff. Basically AWS provides a bunch of different cloud based web services for deploying full stack web applications. What does that mean in real-person-english? IT MEANS THEYRE RUNNING THE FRIKIN WORLD. Remember that wee lil site called Reddit? Yeah that bad boy is running on AWS. Have you heard of the cute lil picture sharing service called Instagram? Yeah that lil cutie was running entirely on AWS from 2010 until when Facebook ate Instagram and violently extracted Insta from the bowels of AWS. I could give you like literally a million other examples, so let it be known that AWS powers a metric butt-ton of the web services that you know and love.
That’s kinda wild to me. I guess I never fully understood how fundamentally important Amazon is to literally kazillions of internet businesses.
Why do I mention AWS? Because I’ll be using Google Computing Platform to run my app! JK I’ll be using AWS. That joke was so weak I wish I didn’t write it. Just kidding. We suffer together.
Anyway, AWS is pretty sweet, and they’re also pretty great because they offer a ton of free stuff. It’s a really fantastic business model. They basically let you build an entire application using their tools for free, and when your business actually takes off, then they start charging the big bucks.
Do I have anything else I’m dying to tell you all about right now? Let me think… Well I guess I’ll let you know that I finally got off my lazy butt this morning and ran 5 miles. My feet don’t take too kindly to being run on for that mileage after my staggering lack of cardio over the past four weeks, so both of my feet decided to blossom two of the largest blisters this side of the Baltic Sea, and for whatever reason, my right foot decided to break, and now I have to limp around.
Now that I’ve impressed you all with my remarkable athleticism, I think I’m going to say adieu. I’m actually going to send out an email blast to those of you on my email list after I finish writing this. For those of you who have still stubbornly decided you want no part of my email list, I’ll leave you to think upon your sins in whatever moldy dark corner you like spending your time in.
Nothing like ending a sentence on a preposition to intellectually invalidate myself.
That’s all. Have a good night of sleep.