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Notes from the trenches: React Native, Flutter, JavaScript, and the occasional dive into security tooling.

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· 5 min read

We ran rn-doctor on 20 popular React Native templates - here's what's dying inside them

I pointed react-native-doctor-ci at the dependency lists of 20 popular React Native starters and templates. A quarter of them ship dependencies that are deprecated, archived, or flagged unmaintained on day one - with real numbers, names, and the rules that caught them.

  • React Native
  • CI
  • Dependencies

· 14 min read

Why universal links and Android App Links break (10 fixes)

Universal link opens Safari? App Links show the chooser? The ten configuration mistakes behind almost every broken deep link in React Native, and how to fix and CI-check each one.

  • React Native
  • Deep Linking
  • iOS

· 4 min read

Seven years shipping cross-platform apps: what I actually learned

Less a tutorial, more a set of opinions earned the hard way. The things about building and shipping mobile apps that I believe now and didn't when I started, about release engineering, performance, and where time really goes.

  • React Native
  • Career
  • Release Engineering

· 3 min read

React Native DevTools: debugging after Flipper

The debugging story changed when Flipper was dropped and React Native DevTools became the default. What the new tools are good at, how I actually debug a React Native app day to day, and what I stopped reaching for.

  • React Native
  • Debugging
  • DevTools

· 3 min read

End-to-end testing React Native with Maestro (and why we moved off Detox)

E2E tests for mobile have a reputation for being flaky and miserable to maintain. Maestro changed that for us. What the flows look like, what it does well, and the honest limitations.

  • React Native
  • Testing
  • Maestro

· 4 min read

Upgrading React Native from 0.73 to 0.82: a survival guide

Nine minor versions in one project. The strategy that kept it sane - incremental not big-bang, the upgrade-helper diff, dependency triage, and turning on the New Architecture - plus the specific things that broke.

  • React Native
  • Upgrade
  • New Architecture

· 4 min read

Keyboard Management in React Native: The Full Developer's Journey

Discover how keyboard handling in React Native has transformed from clunky workarounds to fluid, cross-platform solutions.

  • react-native

· 5 min read

Monetizing Your React Native App with In-App Purchases

Learn how to effectively monetize your React Native app using in-app purchases.

  • react-native

· 2 min read

Taming Visual Studio’s CPU Usage: A Lightweight Workflow for Angular + MVC + API Projects

Struggling with high CPU usage in Visual Studio while running Angular + MVC + API projects? Learn how to reduce CPU load from 100% to under 30% by running M

  • angularjs
  • dot-net-development
  • mvc

· 4 min read

Offline-first React Native: data sync patterns that hold up

Users get on the subway, the network drops, and your app should keep working. Building offline-first with a local database, an outbox for writes, and a sync strategy that survives conflicts - plus where the genuinely hard parts are.

  • React Native
  • Offline
  • Realm

· 3 min read

React 19 in React Native: what changed and what to watch

React Native shipped React 19. Most of it is quietly nice, some of it changes habits, and a couple of things will surface in your app on upgrade. A practical rundown for mobile developers.

  • React Native
  • React 19

· 4 min read

Life after App Center: choosing an OTA path as CodePush sunsets

Microsoft is retiring App Center, which is where CodePush lived. If your app relies on over-the-air updates, here are the real options, how they differ, and how to think about the migration before the lights go out.

  • React Native
  • CodePush
  • OTA

· 4 min read

Migrating a custom native module to a TurboModule

Taking an old bridge-style native module to the New Architecture: the spec file, codegen, and the iOS and Android changes - using a small real module as the worked example.

  • React Native
  • New Architecture
  • TurboModules

· 4 min read

React Native's New Architecture: what Fabric and TurboModules actually change

The New Architecture is now the default. Past the buzzwords - Fabric, the JSI, TurboModules, codegen - here's what genuinely changes for app developers and what to check before you flip it on.

  • React Native
  • New Architecture
  • Performance

· 3 min read

iOS code signing, explained by someone who hated it

Certificates, provisioning profiles, identifiers, and why your build fails with a useless error. A mental model for iOS code signing, and how Fastlane match makes it stop being your problem.

  • iOS
  • Fastlane
  • Code Signing

· 4 min read

Taming Redux in a large codebase (and knowing when to drop it)

Redux gets blamed for problems that are really about how it's used. What disciplined Redux looks like in a big React Native app, the boilerplate cure that is Redux Toolkit, and the honest question of whether you need it at all.

  • React Native
  • Redux
  • Architecture

· 3 min read

Profiling React Native startup: Hermes, TTI, and chasing the cold start

Cold-start time is the first impression your app makes, and it's measurable and fixable. How I profile React Native startup, what actually moves the needle, and the wins that are mostly free.

  • React Native
  • Performance
  • Hermes

· 4 min read

OTA updates with CodePush: patterns, pitfalls, and rollback

Over-the-air updates let you ship a JS fix in hours instead of waiting on app review. They also let you brick your app for everyone in minutes. How we used CodePush safely - staged rollout, mandatory rules, and automatic rollback.

  • React Native
  • CodePush
  • OTA

· 4 min read

Cutting our crash rate: a Sentry and Crashlytics triage workflow

How we went from a crash-free rate we were embarrassed by to one we were proud of - not with one heroic fix, but with boring, repeatable triage. The process, the tooling, and what the numbers actually mean.

  • React Native
  • Sentry
  • Crashlytics

· 4 min read

Deep linking and universal links in React Native, end to end

Getting a link like myapp.com/product/42 to open the right screen in your app, across cold starts, warm starts, iOS universal links and Android app links. The full picture, including the parts that silently fail.

  • React Native
  • Deep Linking
  • iOS

· 3 min read

A Fastlane + GitHub Actions pipeline for iOS and Android, from zero

Manual builds are where release days go to die. Here's the CI setup I use to go from a git tag to TestFlight and the Play Store internal track without touching Xcode or a terminal.

  • React Native
  • Fastlane
  • GitHub Actions

· 2 min read

How to share an iOS ipa file for installation over the air with custom domain server set up.

To share an iOS IPA file for installation over the air with a custom domain server set up, we first need to prepare the build.

  • ios-app-development
  • ios

· 3 min read

Payments and push notifications in React Native: the parts that bite

Two features every commerce app needs, and two features where the happy path in the docs hides the real work. Notes on getting payment gateways and push notifications to behave in production.

  • React Native
  • Payments
  • Push Notifications

· 3 min read

Migrating to Reanimated 3: what actually changed

Reanimated 3 is out and the upgrade from 2 is smaller than the version bump suggests - but there are a few real breaking changes and one dropped compatibility mode worth knowing before you bump the version.

  • React Native
  • Reanimated
  • Animation

· 3 min read

Writing your first custom native module in React Native

When no library exists for the native feature you need, you write the bridge yourself. A walkthrough of a simple iOS + Android native module and the gotchas that aren't in the docs.

  • React Native
  • Native Modules
  • iOS

· 2 min read

Difference Between React Native and Flutter

React Native and Flutter are both popular frameworks for building mobile apps, but they have some key differences.

  • Mobile app development
  • React Native
  • Flutter

· 3 min read

Gesture-driven animations in React Native that don't drop frames

Why animating through React state stutters, and how Reanimated 2 worklets and the gesture handler keep a draggable, swipeable UI running on the UI thread at 60fps.

  • React Native
  • Reanimated
  • Animation

· 2 min read

Best Practices for Mobile App Development

Mobile app development is a constantly evolving field, and it can be difficult to keep up with the latest best practices.

  • Mobile app development

· 2 min read

Best Practices for React Native Development

React-Native is a popular framework for building mobile apps using JavaScript and React. Follow these best practices to ensure that your apps are efficient, maintainable, and free of bugs.

  • Mobile app development

· 3 min read

Structuring navigation in a real app: nested stacks done right

Tabs with their own histories, a login flow that sits outside everything, modals over the top - how to lay out React Navigation so it scales past the toy-example stage.

  • React Native
  • React Navigation
  • Mobile app development

· 3 min read

From React on the web to React Native: what transfers, what doesn't

Moving from React web to React Native, most of your React knowledge comes with you - but layout, navigation, and "it works on my machine" all change. A field guide for the jump.

  • React Native
  • React
  • Mobile app development

· 6 min read

Log4j Solr THM

Log4j

  • Log4j
  • Solr
  • Notes

· 3 min read

From jQuery to React: what finally made components click

I spent years building UIs by grabbing elements and poking at them with jQuery. Moving to React meant unlearning that habit. Here's the mental shift that finally made it make sense.

  • React
  • JavaScript
  • Web

· 3 min read

Debounce vs throttle in JavaScript, with real examples

Two functions that sound similar and get mixed up constantly. Here's the difference, when to reach for each, and small implementations you can read in one sitting.

  • JavaScript
  • Performance
  • Web

· 2 min read

How to use gpg as ssh agent

Enable the GPG-agent ssh support

  • gpg
  • ssh

· 7 min read

How to create a GPG key pair

Here we will create a key to Certify and then create sub-keys to sign, encrypt and Authenticate.

  • gpg
  • pgp
  • keys

· 3 min read

Sending bulk email with AWS SES without landing in spam

We needed to send order updates and the occasional newsletter to a few thousand users. Here's how I set up Amazon SES, and the SPF/DKIM/DMARC work that kept us out of the spam folder.

  • AWS
  • SES
  • Email

· 1 min read

AWS CLI Usage

AWS CLI Usage

  • AWS
  • AWS-CLI
  • s3

· 3 min read

Serving assets faster with AWS CloudFront

Notes from putting a CDN in front of an S3 bucket for an e-commerce site - what CloudFront actually does, the cache headers that matter, and the invalidation mistake that cost me an afternoon.

  • AWS
  • CloudFront
  • Web

· 1 min read

A Google quiz that helps you spot email phishing scams better.

Many people fall for those bogus emails which range from attractive shopping offers to fake emails telling you to secure your online accounts. Identifying a phishing email might not be easy as you think. You may only realise that you clicked a malicious link after it’s done.

  • Google
  • Phishing
  • Quiz

· 1 min read

Javascript vs Typescript

JavaScript and TypeScript are both programming languages that are widely used for web development, but they have some key differences.

  • Javascript
  • Typescript

· 1 min read

Data Types and variables in Javascript

Data is anything meaningful to the computer. Javascript provides 7 different datatypes to use within Javascript.

  • Javascript

· 3 min read

Types of Cybersecurity Threats and How to Prevent Them

Cybersecurity threats are constantly evolving and can come in many forms. Understanding the types of threats that exist and knowing how to prevent them is crucial for protecting sensitive information and systems from attack.

  • Cybersecurity

· 2 min read

What Is Cryptography

Cryptography is the practice of securing information through the use of codes and ciphers.

  • Cryptography

· 2 min read

What Is Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting computer systems, networks, and sensitive information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction.

  • Cybersecurity