Kotlin: Statically typed programming language for the JVM, Android and the browser

No one could even predict that a new language would gain such popularity in such a short time. Not long ago, Java was considered to be the primary language of Android development. By including the “data” keyword in the class definition, you can avoid setting up everything manually. The compiler takes on the task and generates all necessary getters and setters automatically. Java lacks this feature, which makes Kotlin superior in terms of using multiple inheritances. Kotlin allows for a receiving object to delegate operations to a second delegate object, which is called the helper object.

In Kotlin, functions may be declared at top level in a file, locally inside other functions, as a member function inside a class or object, and as an extension function. Extension functions provide the C#-like ability to extend a class with new functionality without having to inherit from the class or use any type of design pattern such as Decorator. In 2018, https://globalcloudteam.com/ Kotlin was the fastest growing language on GitHub with 2.6 times more developers compared to 2017. It is the fourth most loved programming language according to the 2020 Stack Overflow Developer Survey. Kotlin supports the specification of a «primary constructor» as part of the class definition itself, consisting of an argument list following the class name.

Cross-Platform Mobile Development

Today, being a Kotlin developer means being a competitive specialist on the job market. In this article, we are going to overview what Kotlin is, the main sphere of its applying, and why companies operating in information technology outsourcing are using it. However, Kotlin’s full integration with Java is also ideal for back-end web development. Note that your app may need extra work for server-side development if you use Kotlin. Since its adoption by Google, the number of Kotlin developers has grown recently. New developers have more resources to fall back on if they encounter any issues.

The problem that many Java developers are familiar with is NullPointerException that happens when accessing null reference from code and causes runtime errors and crashes. In Kotlin, a developer cannot directly assign null value to any object or variable. Instead, it uses a safe call operator (?.) to check for null references; it executes any action only if the reference has a non-null value. The solution decreases the number of errors and makes coding easier. This vibrant and growing community enables developers to build efficient and effective applications across various platforms. Kotlin’s modern features, expressive syntax, and seamless Java interoperability make it an ideal choice for Android app development.

Kotlin

While Java and Kotlin both have ample documentation, Kotlin has a smoother learning curve. Originally intending to make coding in Java more productive, a team from JetBrains introduced Kotlin what is Kotlin in 2017. Shortly thereafter in 2018, Kotlin became its own official programming language. With support from Google, Kotlin was introduced as an alternative to Java for mobile development.

This may pose a challenge for developers working with resource-constrained devices or dealing with large codebases. The dynamic typing feature of JavaScript works effectively for front-end development. But developers prefer statically typed code for backend development.

Significance of Kotlin for Android App Development

Open Source – The Kotlin compiler, Intellij IDEA plugin, and build tools are all open source. Kotlin originated from Russia, therefore, a noteworthy percentage of Russian developers have opted for Kotlin, forming the core of the Kotlin community. Even so, the Kotlin community is around 20 times smaller than Java’s, and more developers are still inclined to using Java. One major strength of Kotlin compared to Java is the use of the extension function, which allows a programmer to add additional functionality to a class. This is achieved by prefixing the name of the class and function. Java is renowned for its WORA feature, meaning “write once run anywhere”.

It also offers practical value for its parent company, which uses it for its line of products. With Google’s support, two innovative companies are working together toward their development. Kotlin is a simple yet powerful language compared to other languages. While Java suffers from severe issues, Scala’s different programming language is dense with slow compilation time. The library required to write Android apps with Kotlin is very small and doesn’t increase the method count much. Kotlin ships with a very small runtime and it’s the aim to keep it that way.

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For example, we at Surf have over 12 years of experience developing apps using both native and cross-platform technologies and adopting best practices across industries. All our projects come with comprehensive and structured documentation, so it can be easily handed to an in-house team for post-release maintenance. Fill in the short form and we’ll contact you to discuss the details.

• All our projects come with comprehensive and structured documentation, so it can be easily handed to an in-house team for post-release maintenance.
• On the other hand, although a comparatively young language, I believe Kotlin’s official documentation is sufficient to learn how to work with it, so this also ends in a draw.
• Kotlin’s performance is generally on par with Java since it compiles to Java bytecode and runs on the JVM.
• Until Kotlin was released, starting the never-changing Kotlin vs. Java opposition.
• When reviewing the pull request, developers need to revisit this code to check if it is as per the requirement or not.
• It is very concise, and there is less code to write, saving time & money.

Your apps will run faster and smoother without wasting much memory. Kotlin is one of the most productive programming languages today, and having Kotlin development services can help your business deliver high-quality work in less time. It has features that streamline regular tasks, making development faster and easier. This language is more concise than Java, which leads to fewer errors and compatibility with existing Java libraries and frameworks.

Kotlin Help

These run the gamut from style fixes to make the code cleaner all the way to tricky runtime behavior changes . We also compared the latest Kotlin version with Java 11, which is the latest version that can be used for Android development. Meta’s Android repository is very large and reaches across our family of apps and technologies, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Portal, and the Quest. Shifting away from Java, which we currently use for Android development, and over to Kotlin is not a trivial task. In recent years, Kotlin has become a popular language for Android development.

This object-oriented and functional language is worth learning whether you want to develop cross-platform mobile applications or enter the field of web development. Kotlin fully supports all major integrated development environments that are used for Java development as well as many text editors. These include Android Studio, which is the most popular tool for Android development; IntelliJ IDEA created by JetBrains itself; Atom developed by GitHub; Eclipse and others. Kotlin, primarily known for its Android app development capabilities, is also a powerful tool for web programming. With its JavaScript transpiler and a robust set of libraries, Kotlin allows developers to write client-side and server-side web applications with ease. Since the inauguration of Kotlin in 2011 by Jetbrain, it has made quite a name in the community of developers.

Enhanced Productivity and Development Speed

Speaking of avoiding common errors, Kotlin was designed to eliminate the danger of null pointer references and streamline the handling of null values. It does this by making a null illegal for standard types, adding nullable types, and implementing shortcut notations to handle tests for null. To override a superclass method, the method itself must be marked open, and the subclass method must be marked override. This is all of a piece with Kotlin’s philosophy of making things explicit rather than relying on defaults. Many asynchronous mechanisms available in other languages can be implemented as libraries using Kotlin coroutines. This includes async/await from C# and ECMAScript, channels and select from Go, and generators/yield from C# and Python.