We need to have a discussion about the word "Native"

[nothingismagick]

[nothingismagick]

I would argue that what we have seen here in the discourse is a type of inverse ageism that relies on the politics of nativism. It is akin to the "lighthearted but rooted in corporate culture" position that real engineers write C or Rust and mere developers use javascript. It is the "vim is better than VS code". Mine is better than yours.

Basically it means that only the "native / local" is good, and can ultimately be seen as a type of holier-than-thou xenophobia, or even a kind of toxic masculinity. You can definitely see this in how the simple linguistic construction of "non-native" apps automatically imparts a character of not being desirable.

I think that if crossplatform.dev is to have a real impact, it needs to pay balanced attention to all platforms, technologies, frameworks, and workflows. We need to look at the relative merits of things by making qualified determinants with regard to what we consider good. It cannot be subjective or we run the real risk of just building footguns.

[molant]

It cannot be subjective or we run the real risk of just building footguns.

Completely agree with this statement. I believe in using the right tool for the job. The problem I've seen is that many developers end up using a hammer for everything.

RE native I've definitely seen that toxicity and gatekeeping from developers of some languages towards others.
I still haven't found an alternative term to it, just some that could apply to certain scenarios like "native controls" → "OS provided controls".

Any suggestions are more than welcome!

[molant]

@nothingismagick I'm taking a look at the wikipedia and they seem to favorize the term "traditional applications"