With each passing year, JavaScript becomes a more and more suitable language for mobile development. Regardless of whether you use Cordova to run a locally-hosted web app on the device, or a framework like React Native to generate native views from JavaScript, there's a common challenge: tapping into native device functionality with plugins.

We'll set our sights on iteratively building simple Cordova and React Native plugins, which provide a JavaScript facade to access iOS or Android SDK functionality. As our plugins evolve, our understanding of best practices for "bridging the gap" -- and indeed our understanding of how these tools work internally will become more accurate and comprehensive.

After this talk, developers will think of technologies like Cordova and React Native as less of a temperamental black box, and will feel more confident in the prospect of debugging, contributing to or authoring a native plugin of their own.