I've been learning React Native from a tutorial. It's a great tutorial - just slightly fast-paced and a little bit "spoon fed". However I'm getting a feel for what React Native is like. I already know React and have written a bunch of applications in it, so React Native is easy enough. Views and Text instead of divs and h1, p, etc. Also we're using nativewind, which is written on top of tailwind. This is the third time for me using tailwind. I learned frontend first, so I normally code my own CSS. Another benefit is that I didn't have to load xcode onto my laptop. I'm using expo, which is a godsend.
My only complaint is that I'm new at this, so every step of the way I introduce a bug. Sometimes it goes unnoticed, like putting a comma in a list of classNames. With React, or JSX, this will work sometimes and not work other times, so when it stops working it's a mystery. Then I compare my code with the instructor's code or ask ChatGPT. Right now I'm stuck playing a video (using expo-av). I'm going to just go on and see if I can play the stored videos that appear in a second FlatList.
ChatGPT hasn't actually helped much. It keeps telling me to install the expo cli, to make sure I've installed this or that package, etc., which I have. It did catch one bug where I wrapped the callback function in curly braces when it required parentheses. Nothing worked at all until ChatGPT told me of course it wouldn't do anything until I fixed the error. I was grateful.
Here's the link to the video: React Native Tutorial
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