Facebook's Three Major Developments That Will Keep Both Developer And End-User Happy

Facebook sure is making a whole lot of changes in the way that it runs the mega-website lately, and there’s something for everybody in their mix of changes. First, there’s great news for the users: Facebook just announced that it’s releasing THE “Dislike” button that users have clamored for so long. When the story first broke out, people were just happy to learn that the button is about to be added.

However, Facebook later clarified that it won’t necessarily be “Dislike” or a thumbs-down, as it’s not the kind of emotional mix it wants to add to the community. They’ve sent out word that it would be more of expressions to convey empathy, especially for statuses announcing loss or bereavement. Kudos to Facebook on that!

Next, if you’ve noticed, you can now block some of your Facebook friends, or random strangers whose messages end up in your Other folder, from sending you messages, without actually blocking them off your account. This is convenient for those people in your life whom you don’t really want to hear from anytime soon. A message just pops up on the other end saying that you won’t be receiving messages from that particular person, until you unblock them. You will also get that message if another Facebook friend of yours blocks you from sending messages as well. This works for those moments when you just want to tune out some people in your life but you don’t necessarily want to unfriend or block them.

And lastly, Facebook gets generous to the open source community. They’ve released their ground-breaking Javascript library, React Native. React Native allows a programmer to see which codes they can reiterate or turn into a boilerplate code, and this allows them to program for the different platforms: Desktop, iOS, Android, and as a Java app on mobile. React Native breaks down the barriers in coding, and lets a programmer release an app across platforms faster.

For those who want to understand how React Native works, here are links for the geeks:

React Native: Bringing modern web techniques to mobile: https://code.facebook.com/posts/1014532261909640/react-native-bringing-modern-web-techniques-to-mobile/

[The Code is also available on this page] React: A JavaScript library for building user interfaces: https://facebook.github.io/react/

TechCrunch explains React: React Demolishes Engineering Silos So Facebook Can Reuse Code For Web, iOS, And Android: https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/26/facebook-react-native/

TechCrunch explains why React is being released to the Open Source community and what good it would do: Facebook Open Sources React Native For Android So Devs Can Reuse Code Across Web And iOS: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/14/react-native-android/

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All good developments for Facebook, for the Developer and the end-user alike.