Bryan Phelps

Electron is one of the most popular platforms today for building cross-platform desktop applications. We shipped v1 of our code editor, Onivim, using Electron, and while it was wonderful to leverage web technologies and frameworks like ReactJS, we faced numerous performance challenges.

In order to meet our performance goals, we decided to re-architect and move to a native solution based on ReasonML. In the process, we built a new desktop application framework called Revery, which lets us enjoy the ReactJS & Redux style of development… but with native code performance! This move has drastically improved our startup time, responsiveness, and memory usage. In addition, we’ve been able to take a new approach to our core architecture – leveraging functional programming principles.

We’ll discuss our journey of shipping a cross-platform desktop app with this new technology stack, and share our successes and challenges in migrating from TypeScript/React/Electron to ReasonML/Revery for Onivim v2.

2019

ReactiveConf

Onivim 2: Re-Architecting for Performance

Revery is a high-performance, React-inspired, native application stack built on top of the Reason programming language. 

This talk will explore how Revery, along with Reason, enable you to leverage your ReactJS skills to build “totally native” applications. We’ll discuss the motivation behind Revery, explore the technology stack, and showcase the native Reason toolchain. 

We’ll dive into what “totally native” means - and how it differs from React Native. We’ll also highlight several other developments in the “totally native” React space.