Although the Corona described in this essay has nothing to do with the virus, they share the ability to cross any border with the same characteristic.

Did you know you can build for multiple platforms with the same technology? This seems like an impossible task but the CoronaLabs team claimed with their technology, you can build apps and games for platforms such as Apple iPhone and iPad, Android phones and tablets, Amazon Fire, Mac Desktop, Windows Desktop, and even connected TVs such as Apple TV, Fire TV, and Android TV.

Cross-platform defined in the real world

The keyword is 'Platform'. In the real world, this could be two or more countries that don't exchange with each other. In Belgium for example, there are 3 spoken languages in 3 different regions of the country. When a law is being voted to work in the whole country, you can think of It as a Cross-(Region) law, meaning it works seamlessly in all regions.

Cross-platform defined in the tech world

In the tech world, we have some classics:

• Android, iOS and the Web platform: React Native is a mobile framework that allows developers to build cross-platform applications for iOS, Android and the Web. Flutter and Xamarin are also cross-platform mobile frameworks.

• macOS, Windows and Linux: Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform IDE that allows developers to write code from any Operating System: This was not possible for quite some time. It changed Microsoft and Its ecosystem for the better.

• Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Edge: JavaScript is a programming language that works on all these platforms natively. Moreover, JavaScript could be used in the backend with NodeJS. One could say JavaScript is a Cross-Platform technology.

Some companies don't like this cross-platform approach in software development: They rather have one technology per platform. For example, in the mobile development world, big companies often have a dedicated team for iOS and another one for Android. They wouldn't use technologies such as React Native or Flutter.

Takeaways

Cross-platform can mean many things depending on who you talk to. Mobile developers will refer to the different Operating Systems while web developers will focus on the different browsers.

Tips #1: When you find the word cross-platform on a resume, pause and try to understand the context. Often the set of technologies they use gives it away.

Tips #2: Working and maintaining cross-platform technologies is often a pain for any company. Try to understand what are those challenges and offer them solutions to solve them. For example, a company that uses dedicated teams for iOS and Android might face the issue of having to build the same apps twice. Vice-versa, they might be dealing with platform-specific issues that are difficult to tackle with React Native or Flutter. Just listen and see where is the pain.

This was Corona is a Cross-Platform technology. What are the limits?

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Until next time, take care!