In the Mobile Development course, I was introduced to Facebook’s React Native platform, and was tasked to create professional mobile applications. This was succeeded by using features such as React’s hooks (useState, useEffect, useContext), exposed UI components (Text, View, Flatlist, etc), and even creating my own reusable components.
Course reflection
This course had me watch videos by Maximilian Schwarzmuller – a professional web developer. At first, I learned what React Native is, how it’s helpful, and how to get started with creating React Native projects. I also learned about Expo, an extra library that would also provide numerous benefits such as quick refresh, cross-platform builds, push-notifications, etc.
Module 1, my first hands-on experience with React Native projects. The first project I was tasked with was a simple project that required the use of the useState() hook. Using this hook we can keep track of data and reflect those changes to our UI components where that data is being used.
Next, was the Flexbox and View components. I quickly realized that the View component is very similar to HTML’s <div> tag, and already having an understanding of HTML helped me learn these new concepts with ease. I was also introduced to the ScrollView component and learned that nested objects inside it can now be scrolled once the data goes outside the view.
Module 3 had me working with expo’s built-in icon libraries, loading custom fonts, and outputting each object in an array using the FlatList component. One of the assignments for this module had me utilize all these components to create a favorite thing app that as the name implies would show my favorite things in a nice, neat list that can be scrolled.
Module 4 had me using navigators such as a Stack and Tab. Using these, you can create multiple screens that can be switched from using the navigation hook. The final assignment in this module required that I nest navigators to enhance the About Me app.
This course also taught me how to use device related features such as location and using the camera. I also learned about permissions, how to check for them, and how to ask the user for them. Maps was also something I dived into, learning to use Google’s map API, and React Maps to create a map that can be interacted with.
The things listed above as just some of the things I’ve learned during this course. There is so much more I didn’t discuss, but I don’t want to make this too long. I had so much fun going through this course and I know one day what I’ve learned will be tested in the field.
Zach Birrell 