Flipper: Community managed plugins

[usrbowe]

Introduction

Since last release of React Native v 0.62, we got a shiny new developer tool Flipper. I do believe this is a huge step forward in improving React Native developers experience when developing apps and later on debugging them. Currently it has few built in tools, which are cool, but it doesn't really cover all aspects of developing RN app.

The Core of It

I would like to discuss my proposal of developing and maintaining high quality set of essential plugins for Flipper. Which are out of scope for Facebook (so excluding Hermes debugger,...). This might be bit too early to do, but would like to gather views on this from others. I'm just bit afraid we will have hundreds of plugins, and it will be hard for new comers to pick the right ones.

Discussion points

• there are lot of plugins added nowadays but lacking basic instructions on how to use
• it's not very clear if plugin is even for React Native (plugins for Flipper). This might be more solved by Flipper itself in future
• quality of plugins. I love to see people contributing their plugins, but so far what I saw most of them lack good UI and they are competing with each other on the same field.
• I want to maintain essential tools like Redux Devtools,... Or any other popular tools to help develop RN app.
• We can also provide official plugins for libraries managed by community (async storage plugin, netinfo plugin,..)

[TheSavior]

Thanks for posting this @usrbowe, although I'm not clear on what this is specifically proposing. What does "accepting" this proposal mean?

Is the proposal whether we want people to collaborate and build high quality flipper plugins? If so, then yes, I definitely want people to collaborate and build high quality flipper plugins.

Is the question whether this community org should be the home for those plugins? If so, I think I see it very similar to the other packages already maintained in this org. This community being a home to well maintained packages that are valuable to the community makes sense to me.

[usrbowe]

Thanks for the question @TheSavior. My idea is not to directly do anything out of this proposal. I just wanna see what are the views of others. Later if we can see to agree upon this direction, we can create a first plugin and set a guidelines on how to create plugins.

I can imagine to either kickstart from some existing plugin for Flipper and move it under community. And with that introduce guidelines on how to create plugin with rules for creating UI, so we can maintain similar look&feel of those plugins.

I believe that if we can deliver consistent set of plugins for most common tools with a support, it will greatly benefit the entire community.

[kevinvangelder]

@rmevans9 and @jamonholmgren worked directly with Facebook to build https://github.com/infinitered/flipper-plugin-reactotron so they might be able to contribute some good basic guidelines.