Ravi S. Iyer: Software Development

Last updated on 1 Sep. 2025 Sections in post 1. WebView 2. WebView vs Native (React Native) Performance (perceived) 3. Expo 'use dom' Directive 4. React Native for Windows + react-native-webview Section Summaries 1. WebView A  WebView  is basically a  mini web browser engine  that can be embedded inside a native app. It lets the app show  web content (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)  inside what looks like a normal screen of the app. The OS provides the WebView component: On Android → it’s based on Chromium (Android System WebView). On iOS → it’s WKWebView (based on Safari’s WebKit engine). On Windows/macOS/Linux → you get equivalents (e.g., WebView2 on Windows uses the Edge/Chromium engine). You, as a developer, pass HTML, CSS, and JS (either as a file or a URL) into the WebView.  The WebView engine parses HTML/CSS, runs JS, and renders the UI just like a browser would. I t does not convert HTML/CSS into native UI widgets (e.g., <button> in HTML is not t...

Last updated on 2 Sep. 2025 Note: Modern ASP.NET Core (via Blazor) and PHP frameworks can support hybrid, SPA-like behavior. However, in this post, when I or ChatGPT refer to ASP.NET/PHP, we mean the classic server-rendered applications built with ASP.NET MVC / Razor or traditional PHP frameworks. These represent server-rendered apps (pure SSR) and are commonly called Multi-Page Applications (MPAs). Sections in post 1. Comparing Architectures: Pure SPA vs Pure SSR vs Next.js Hybrid 2. What is hydration in Next.js (Hybrid SPA using React)? 3. Why does a React app have SEO issues? Why does Next.js not have these SEO issues? 4. Page loading in Pure SSR vs Next.js/Streaming SSR 5. React SPA: First load, browser caches JS bundle; Later loads are faster 6. React/Next.js: How deployment changes are detected  7. React/Next.js: After the JS bundle loads, React in the browser controls the page 8. React SPA vs Next.js — Comparison 9. Plain React app: Ways to fix weaker SEO 10. React Native / ...