Cross-platform programming is an efficient and qualitative approach to software development and has been around for more than a decade now. Companies wanting to conquer both Android and iOS often look for cross-platform technologies. Such a development strategy helps in reducing the cost without sacrificing in quality of the software.
Created by Brendan Eich, JavaScript is best known for its use on websites. It is a high-level, multi-paradigmatic, object-oriented scripting language. Major web browsers have a dedicated JavaScript engine to execute code on the user's device. While using the advanced level of JavaScript, there is a possibility that the language gets significantly expanded. Client-side JavaScript expands the base language by providing objects that control the browser and its Document Object Model (DOM). Server-side JavaScript extends the base language by providing objects related to running JavaScript on the server. Users use JavaScript for its versatility and compatibility with many third-party frameworks.
Java is one of the universal cross-platform programming languages. It has been the official programming language for the Android platform for years until Google announced Kotlin in 2019. The stability and good performance of Java make it widely utilized for enterprise-scale web application development. It is a high-level and object-oriented programming language. Java applications are compiled into bytecode which you can run on any Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Ruby is an object-oriented integrated programming language. Ruby is used by beginners in programming and produces satisfactory results. Ruby programs are highly platform-portable and have many unique features such as automatic garbage collection, "duck typing", which involves recognizing types based on their behavior rather than declarations, exception handling, and more. Ruby can be found in the form of a framework that extends the capabilities, of Ruby on Rails.
React Native was developed internally by Facebook in 2015 to improve the users' experience while using Facebook. React Native is one of the most popular cross-platform technologies. It is an open-source programming language used to build cross-platform mobile applications. React components surround existing native code and interact with native APIs through the declarative UI and JavaScript paradigm. RN works almost like the React library. The difference is that React Native does not manipulate the DOM via the virtual DOM while it runs in the background directly on the end device and communicates with the native platform via data serialized over an asynchronous and batch bridge.
Fluffer includes two sets of its own, fully customizable widgets that consider all the crucial differences between the platforms. It has everything packed inside, involving Cupertino and Material Design, and uses the highly efficient 2D rendering engine, Skia. The framework was introduced to the world in 2015 under the name "Sky", but it was not until December 2018 that the first version was considered stable. Flutter is one of the most popular frameworks to build cross-platform applications.
Ionic is a complete open-source SDK used for developing hybrid cross-platform mobile applications. The original version was based on AngularJS and Apache Cordova while the latest version of Ionic has been rebuilt as a Web Components Kit that helps users to choose any UI framework such as Angular or React. It provides tools and services for creating hybrid mobile, desktop, and progressive web applications based on modern technologies and web development practices, using web technologies such as CSS and HTML5. It is relatively simple to understand and can be easily accessed.
Xamarin is a free, open-source, cross-platform framework that uses .NET and C# to develop Android and iOS applications. Xamarin extends .NET's capabilities with tools and libraries particularly designed to build applications for iOS, Windows, Android and macOS. Xamarin offers excellent compile-time checking so developers can experience fewer runtime errors. Xamarin also makes it easy to design native-like applications with a native-friendly interface.
NativeScript is an open-source platform for developing applications for Android and iOS. Mobile applications that run on NativeScript create fully native applications that use the same APIs developed in Xcode or Android Studio. Developers can repurpose third-party libraries without the need for wrappers.
Node.js is an open-source cross-platform runtime for developing server-side applications written in JavaScript. It runs on V8 engine and executes JavaScript code outside a web browser. Node.js consists of a V8 engine, libUV library and some other libraries.
Qt is fundamentally used to build the graphical interface of computer programs, starting from version 4.0. Qt also involves tools for creating console programs and servers. It supports compilers like Visual Studio and PHP.
Moreover, Flutter and Kotlin are quite popular and seem to be the future of cross-platform development to be used by industries worldwide.
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