NativeScript Inside the Black

On this episode of Eat Sleep Code, guest TJ VanToll talks about the inner-workings of NativeScript. NativeScript is an open source project that allows developers to write native iOS and Android applications using JavaScript, XML and CSS. http://developer.telerik.com/featured/nativescript-inside-the-black-box/ Ed Charbeneau: Hello, and welcome to Eat Sleep Code, the official Telerik podcast. I'm your host, Ed Charbeneau, and with me today is TJ Van Toll. TJ Van Toll: Hey, Ed. EC: And today, we'll be talking about NativeScript. What's inside the black box? TJ is a developer advocate on the DevRel team with Telerik. TJ, you work primarily with the NativeScript team and the engineers to discuss what's going on with NativeScript, and bring NativeScript to the masses. TT: Yeah, that's more or less right. I've been with Telerik for a bit over two years. And I've been involved with a few different Telerik products. So Kendo UI, the Telerik Platform. And I've been working with the NativeScript team for basically the greater part of this year. EC: And NativeScript is a way of developing native applications using JavaScript as the primary development language. Correct? TT: Yeah. I'd like to think of it basically as a way that you can build iOS and Android apps, and Windows Phone, Windows Universal apps, probably some time later this year or early next year. And it's a way of doing it, as you said, with JavaScript, but also some other technologies that developers, and particularly web developers with some languages and technology skill sets that these people may already have. So JavaScript, CSS, optionally typed script. There is a lightweight XML language that's very XAML like for building your actual UIs, NPM for package management. And even when it comes over to the native site, you can use things like CocoaPods for existing iOS frameworks, existing iOS dot framework files, Android frameworks or things like jars. So we try to bring in the most amount of skills that people may already have. And allow people to leverage as many existing tools as you can, all while building iOS and Android apps that a lot of people are looking to do today. 02:22 EC: So what's nice about this is we're building actual native applications from this product. We're not putting this in a web view like, let's say, Apache Cordova or something like that. 02:33 TT: Yes. So that the real single biggest differentiator between NativeScript and something like Cordova and some of these other technologies out there is that you are building a truly native app. And that means that you have a truly native user interface, which means the UI controls are gonna be the same thing that you would have available in iOS app that you built in Xcode or an Android app that you built in Visual Studio. And as such, you're basically gonna have native-like performance because you're using those native controls. Your app is gonna not only look like a native app, but also really perform like a native app as well. Find the full transcript on Telerik Developer Network http://developer.telerik.com/featured/nativescript-inside-the-black-box/