To make the most out of my monthly codewithmosh subscription I’ve decided to try the React Native course, but during the initial Expo installation lesson I’ve noticed that the course is 3-4 years old and the APIs and CLI seemed to have changed significantly since then. The mobile app Expo Client has also been replaced with Expo Go (or maybe just renamed).
I guess what I’m looking for is advice from those who currently do (or are familiar with) React Native / Expo development. Is it worth taking this course, or should I just learn on my own?
I have no problem taking the course if the meat of the content and development paradigms are largely the same and only requires me to read the docs and make a few API/CLI changes. But if there’s been a major paradigm shift it how Expo development works it might be better to just learn on my own.
For example, imagine if I were thinking of taking a beginner React course that was written pre-hooks (class components & lifecycle methods). It would be so outmoded at this point that I’d be better off learning the hooks-first approach on my own or elsewhere.
Thoughts?
Thanks in advance.
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So far so good. I haven’t gotten to the meat of the course yet, but I’ve got a test app running on my device and an Android emulator. There are certainly some differences, but so far nothing that’s been a blocker.
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Expo debugging seems to be pretty broken. I haven’t been able to get it working in vscode at all using either the React Native Tools or the Expo Tools plugins (I followed their docs). Most breakpoints I set were marked as “detached”, but the one line that did allow setting a breakpoint crashed the debugger and the app on the phone when it tried to halt.
The only way I have been able to get the debugger to halt was to insert a debugger; line in the code and then clicking the the Open in JS Debugger option in the Expo Go menu (breakpoints had no effect). And even though it halts, hovering to inspect state is broken, so I have to use the scope trees or Watch on right side panel. Based on my web searches, it seems to be broken for many folks. One person said they’d moved to log statements for debugging long ago because of this. Pretty bad DX. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Followed Mosh’s first Getting Started chapter Setting up the development environment and ran into the same problems of depreciation and Expo cli shouldn’t be installed globally anymore… finding some conflicting info also online about if it’s required to uninstall Expo Cli globally first, in order to re-initialize the dev env per the current Expo documentation. I guess not really a question, just a “you’re not alone in figuring this out” response 
Sorry to hear you’re having problems as well. As I progressed through the course I ran into too many differences that needed to be accounted for. Those differences combined with the lack of debugging support made the course very cumbersome and I ended up moving on to other learning opportunities. I may come back to React Native at some point, but right now I need to focus on getting a job, so it’s algorithms, Leetcode, and React/web practice (with a side of Rust/embedded for fun) for now. Whee! 
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Yeah I really wanted to include a React Native app into my portfolio, but with the Metro Bundler not working, plus ongoing conflicts between react-native & expo sdk, which was then compounded when installing the native-community/hooks, I just don’t know enough to be able to continue the course without everything being so messed up… If I see that Expo Cli depreciated red warning one more time… lol All the best for your job search!!!
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@Programmist, @ScottyPPP
I’m grateful to have seen this thread!
I just got a few lessons into the React Native course and started to realise that Expo stuff doesn’t match up.
Do you know if other parts are still up to date and worth while watching the videos for?
Do you have recommendations for other material for React Native and/or Expo?
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I was able to work through most of the Fundamentals course, except 6. Input Components / Building a Pretty TextInput, but I had to search a lot of work arounds where certain elements are deprecated, and had to try different ways to continue through the course. Actually, learned a lot doing that though. Then I got to start the Advanced Concepts but stopped at 2. Native Features / Accessing the Library, ImageInputList & FormImagePicker. Tried for weeks to fumble through online documentation searching for how to resolve the errors to just continue with the course, but had to abandon it. I think as a beginner, when you don’t really know what you are doing yet, it’s incredibly difficult to find work-arounds or alternatives when a course’s technologies change. So at this point, I can’t move forward past the Advanced Concepts course Chapter 2. Native Features. I want to, but have no idea how to without guided instruction. Good luck with your progress!!
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