App Inside App — Mobile App Architecture [Part2]
This is an adjacent article of App Inside App
In my last article, I discussed how several apps are developing layers on top of layers. Few are making it innovative whereas few are making it clumsy.
In this article, we will discuss if someday your manager comes to you & says that we need to do something like this -> “In our legacy application, we need to add another module which is an application by nature”, what will be your thought process to achieve it?
Let’s discuss in detail:
Design Pattern — Doesn’t matter
I know I know, don’t get furious, get curious. The first thing first a developer thinks about in this situation is data flow & design pattern. Believe me, I know how developers think in this situation. However, you’re not wrong if you are thinking about it. As you are the only one who is married to your code. You understand each line of it & where are the flaws. But give it a minute. You have done it earlier, you will do it in future too. Think about the bigger picture in this order. Consider these as Stars, you want to achieve.
- Code management
- Code reusability
- speed
- security
- dynamic nature of your app modules & assets
- ease of navigation
- size of your final product
When you think of all these scenarios, you will not think about taking the MVC path, MVVM path, or VIPOR path. First, decide on these things & later on you will get your path automatically.
Native Module Approach vs Hybrid Module approach
This is the second biggest point which you need to think like an architect. Most of the time as a Mobile App Architect (if you are in mobile development for more than 10 Years), we love to choose Native over Hybrid. Also, this obsession goes further if your legacy app is in Native.
Give it a try. Do a POC with 2 hybrid modules, try to integrate those in your native app. Try to do a load test on it & find out the result. Does it help your application to achieve all those stars we discussed in the previous point? If yes, there is no harm to choose the Hybrid path. Don’t read the ridiculous discussions on Hybrid Vs Native. You won’t get answers till you do not go to that path by yourself.
If it is not helping you, Native will always be there. Embrace it!
Enough for the day. In the next article, we will discuss on HTML/React JS Approach to achieve an app inside the app.
Tell me your experiences in the comment section, also if this article helps you to decide the designs & architecture of your “app inside the app”.
This is a 5 part series article. So that I can cover as many things as possible in this matter.
See you in the next article.
