Native cross-platform frameworks

Development platforms such as React Native, Xamarin, and .NET Core provide the much-required abstraction for the target platforms, so that development can be done using one framework and development language for multiple runtimes. In other words, the developers are still using the APIs provided by the native platform (for example, Android or iOS SDK), but the development is executed in a single language and framework. This approach not only decreases the development resources, but also saves you from the burden of managing multiple source repositories for multiple platforms. This way, the same source is used to create multiple application heads.

For instance, using .NET Core, the development team can implement all target platforms using the same development suite and language, thus creating multiple client applications for each target platform, as well as the web service infrastructure.

In a cross-platform implementation, architecturally speaking, the application is made up of three distinct tiers:

• Application model (implementation layer for the consumer application)
• Framework (the toolset available for developers)
• Platform abstraction (the harness or runtime to host the application)

In this context, we, in essence, are in pursuit of creating a platform-agnostic application layer that will be catered for on a platform abstraction layer. The platform abstraction layer, whether it's on the native web host or the native cross-platform framework, is responsible for providing the bridge between the single application implementation and the polymorphic runtime component.

.NET Core and Mono provide the runtime, while the .NET Standard provides the framework abstraction, which means that cross-platform applications can be implemented and distributed on multiple platforms. Using Xamarin with the .NET Standard framework on mobile applications and .NET Core on the web infrastructure, sophisticated cloud-supported native mobile applications can be created.