Not so locked in any more
Simon Willison's blog post notes that with the rise of coding agents, the lock-in effect of programming languages and frameworks is diminishing. A mid-sized tech company just used coding agents to rewrite its iOS and Android apps in React Native, and said if it turns out wrong, they can just port back to native.
Not so locked in any more
Simon Willison’s Weblog
Subscribe
14th May 2026
This Mitchell Hashimoto quote about Bun migrating from Zig to Rust reminded me of a similar conversation I had at a conference last week.
I was talking to someone who worked for a medium sized technology company with a pair of legacy/legendary iPhone and Android apps.
They told me they had just completed a coding-agent driven rewrite of both apps to React Native.
I asked why they chose that, given that coding agents presumably drive down the cost of maintaining separate iPhone and Android apps.
They said that React Native has improved a lot over the past few years and covered everything their apps needed to do.
And... if it turned out to be the wrong decision, they could just port back to native in the future.
Like Mitchell said:
Programming languages used to be LOCK IN, and they're increasingly not so.
Recent articles
Notes on the xAI/Anthropic data center deal - 7th May 2026
Live blog: Code w/ Claude 2026 - 6th May 2026
Vibe coding and agentic engineering are getting closer than I'd like - 6th May 2026
This is a note by Simon Willison, posted on 14th May 2026.
ai 2022
react 42
generative-ai 1789
llms 1755
ai-assisted-programming 383
coding-agents 202
Monthly briefing
Sponsor me for $10/month and get a curated email digest of the month's most important LLM developments.
Pay me to send you less!
Sponsor & subscribe
Disclosures
Colophon
©
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026