Bristol JS talk – ReactJS & React Native

I attended another excellent Bristol JS talk last night. Bristol JS seems to be going from strength to strength every year with great talks and speakers appearing regularly, a growing community and a huge waiting list for attendance at most talks. The venues used are also lovely and there is frequently free beer and pizza. What’s not to like 🙂

Jack Franklin talking about React JS

Last night’s theme was React JS – Facebook’s UI framework, which is definitely the coolest kid on the javascript block right now. Jack Franklin gave an excellent introductory presentation on React, how it works and how to get into it. It was an insightful and accessibly talk full of ideas on approach and some useful, simple code samples to show how React Components are structured and work together.

Next up was a lightning talk by David Moody about a very slick site he built in React. It used the Redux pattern to implement a very clever SVG zoomable 2.5D UI. Worth checking out….

Last up was Colin Eberhardt doing his talk – Geeking out about React Native. Colin gave some fascinating insight into how React Native works from a technical perspective and why you might want to use it. He compared it to other similar native mobile development options and explained some of its good points and bad points. Ultimately he felt confident that it had become a strong technology which has some legs on it and will probably be around for a while.

The talks were all filmed so expect links to these on the Bristol JS site soon.