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Why is Kotlin your next Programming Language?

Table of Content:

  • Introduction
  • Kotlin Adoption
  • Significance of Kotlin
  • Major advantages of adopting Kotlin as your next programming language
  • Features of Kotlin
  • Few drawbacks of Kotlin
  • Final thoughts

Kotlin brings a fresh perspective as it is a new programming language from JetBrains. We know that JetBrains has been behind several IDEs and with the progress that they have made, Kotlin and many other similar programming languages are here to stay for years.

Considering Kotlin is not so new in the business but ever since the android technology is evolving at an unprecedented speed. This makes Kotlin replace Java as the official language of Google. Assuming that this is what Kotlin can offer then it is not true. To change this myth, we will explore Kotlin a bit; its existence, adoption, advantages, limitations, and many more. Then, We will also go through some of the issues and hiccups you can run into if you start utilizing it right away. Finally, let’s argue whether Kotlin is the futuristic programming language or not.

Kotlin Adoption

The adoption of Kotlin is skyrocketing ever since its features and functionalities were known in the market to many individual developers now. The statistics also state that Kotlin can be your next go-to programming language. There was also a survey conducted by JetBrains called Kotlin Sensus survey which throws light on many statistics.

According to Jetbrains, they’ve surveyed around 7000 developers and found that more than 55% of respondents have chosen Kotlin as their main language. There is a sudden 39% spike in the rise of the adoption of Kotlin compared to the last survey. Also, there is every 5th user that recommends the use of Kotlin as a multiplatform application development platform.

Also, the stats stated the use of Kotlin by 32% of businesses is for a long time which ranges from 2 years or more.

All they considered were these four aspects of features when using Kotlin features. i) Which features are embraced ii) How widespread is adoption iii) When are these features included in android applications? iv) What makes it more unique than Java or other programming languages?

Significance of Kotlin

Our first step in understanding any language should be to understand how it was created and what difference it is capable of bringing to the business. So, moving our clocks to 2011 when Kotlin was created by the programmers of JetBrains. Other open-source developers also contributed to making it better than other languages. Then after seeing the progress and future of Kotlin in 2019, Google confirmed Kotlin as their most popular language that will be used in most of the app development.

It is a typed programming language that may be run on Java or any other virtual computer. Kotlin is also an open-source, multifunctional, and pragmatic computer programming language that incorporates both non-functional and functional programming and all that it aims for is a faster compilation and deployment In today’s world, Kotlin is relevant, and since it is open-source and has a large number of features, it evolves as a solution to issues that android developers have been dealing with for quite some time. It answers the questions raised by Java, providing developers with freedom, safety, clarity, and tool support.

Major advantages of adopting Kotlin as your next programming language

All these years Java has been your Go-to language for all types of Android development projects. But switching over to Kotlin has proved that it has much more than just developing software applications. The advantages that make Kotlin better than Java are:

  • Simpler and Smart Compiler

Code development in Kotlin is not that fuzzy, it's simple. If you have Kotlin previously, then you will know that the codes are more concise, brief, compact, clear, and implicitly safer therefore it allows for fewer errors. And it's worth noting that Kotlin is designed to prevent common programming errors, which translates to:

You can expect fewer system failures while using Kotlin. It will also alert you to potential issues that their code may create from the beginning of the app's development process. As a result, Kotlin allows developers to be more cautious when writing code for production, resulting in more robust and stable code.

  • Interoperability

Compatibility and interoperability in Kotlin are the most significant advantages of utilizing Kotlin. Kotlin is very flexible and you can integrate all of its tools and frameworks into your Kotlin projects. This interoperability feature will allow you to swiftly migrate your project from one platform to another without much hassle. It's easy and simple with Kotlin. This is also one of the reasons why Kotlin is preferred.

  • Improve Productivity

The third and another important advantage of Kotlin is that it was designed to improve productivity. We know that the higher the productivity there will be more errors with codes. But then Kotlin allows direct and concise code, including its intuitive syntax and general clean language architecture. It will take you less time to build new Kotlin code, deploy it, and maintain it at scale.

Developers are more into enhancing productivity using Kotlin than any other concise and straightforward code. With this regard, Kotlin does have the following power-pack features that will accelerate your development tasks such as:

  • Performing Object declarations

  • parameter values

  • Easier Extension of Functions

  • Maintenance is Easy

Yes, Kotlin is very easy when you want to upgrade or maintain. We can say that it can be used as a multi-faceted language that is approachable and convenient all the time. Kotlin proves its convenience by supporting a wide range of IDEs (including Android Studio) and tools editors. As a result, you are free to use all of the tried-and-true development tools that you are familiar with for maintaining your codebase at scale. This is just another "impossible-to-resist" advantage of Kotlin over Java.

  • Better Support and backup

While you know how kotlin has grown over the years, there are developers who fully trust Kotlin for developing their apps from scratch. Also, when it comes to inlining, you may get a boost in the performance of your mobile apps. It is much safer to code with Kotlin as it offers safer, better backup, and functional concepts. This is due to Kotlin's ability to provide you with appropriate function types to employ in this regard.

Features of Kotlin

In this league of best Programming languages what sets Kotlin stand class apart is its ability to emphasize the architecture and ecosystem. The owning company JetBrains has worked well on the productivity that comes from more than just syntax. That's not it, Kotlin has numerous beneficial features that make writing code more fun and enjoyable: Enlisted are 5 major features of Kotlin that will help you know its best parts.

Null Safety

Kotlin is known for offering null safety to all its developers. It also allows the compiler to systematically detect potential null pointers and manage the references. Unlike certain languages, this does not involve an option type and so has no overhead. Other language features ensure that it is not inconvenient.

import kotlin.* //sampleStart fun nullExample( nonNullableStr: String, // Regular types cannot be null nullableStr: String?, // Nullable types have ? in the end ) { println(nonNullableStr.length) // We can use non-nullable types directly // println(nullableStr.length) <- Nullable types cannot be used directly, // because they can be null, and it wouldn’t be safe. println(nullableStr?.length) // ?. is a safe call, it calls right side // if left is not null, or otherwise the whole expression returns null. // So it is both safe and convenient val newNonNullableStr = nullableStr ?: "default" // Elvis operator provides // a default value, if left side is null println(newNonNullableStr) } fun main() { nullExample("AAA", "BBB") // 3 // 3 // BBB nullExample("AAA", null) // 3 // null // default // nullExample(null, "BBB") <- not allowed, because nonNullableStr cannot be set to null } //sampleEnd

Functional Programming Support

With zero-overhead lambdas and the ability to perform mapping, folding, and other operations, Kotlin is much better at providing functional support than ordinary Java collections. The Kotlin type system differentiates between mutable and immutable collection views.

fun getBestStudentsForInternshipList(students: List<Student>): String = students .filter { it.passing && it.averageGrade > 4.0 } .sortedBy { it.averageGrade } .take(10) .sortedWith(compareBy({ it.surname }, { it.name })) .joinToString(separator = "\n") { "${it.name} ${it.surname}" }

API documentation

Another interesting way for documentation is using Dokka. It also allows you to use Markdown language rather than HTML. This makes authoring JavaDocs a lot easier and more fun. With Dokka as a documentation engine, it supports mixed languages which can help you read both Kotlin and Java source code. It also understands Javadoc and Kdoc comments which makes it easy to generate unified doc webpages in both its own style and the conventional JavaDoc HTML style.

Page generated using Dokka. Source: https://github.com/androiddevnotesyoutube/android-dokka-documentation-kdoc

/** * Main activity description example. */ class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() { override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) { super.onCreate(savedInstanceState) setContentView(R.layout.activity_main) normalFunction("Android Dev Notes") } /** * Normal function * * @param input description example. */ fun normalFunction(input: String) { Log.d("TAG", input) } /** * Deprecated Function used as an Example to show the `skipDeprecated` configuration */ @Deprecated("Deprecated for fun") fun deprecatedFunction() { } }

Few drawbacks of Kotlin

No language is actually perfect and so it goes with kotlin. There are a few limitations that you as a developer will understand about Kotlin. Some of the hurdles that have put developers in a daze are given below.

  • To start with there is a good feature of generating Java-bean Boilerplate using data-class features but the issue with it is it puts a hold on several aspects such as inheriting classes, sealed classes, and also puts up constraints in developing classes.
  • Some limitations include the exception thrown by the IDE plugin. It continues to throw exceptions more frequently than it should. These seldom seem to affect anything and are thus a small annoyance in comparison to a failure in a native-code IDE. However, the '"Internal IDE error'" window can still be annoying.
  • Again, since it does not have any standard style guide, and Kotlin provides multiple different syntaxes to choose from at various times. Different people's Kotlin may look different. This is in contrast to Go, which strictly enforces style. (A simple conventions document is now available)
  • The native community of Kotlin is really small because it has not been in business more than Java or any other community. But when you use Java interop, you really don’t need Kotlin libraries, The community support can help with it.

Final thoughts

Kotlin has been a show-stopper when it comes to developing apps for Android apps and Android app development companies. It is definitely going to be better since we have all the extensions of Java easily integrated with Kotlin. It is just advancing and offering the best features it could to all developers to leverage the best features in developing Kotlin-based applications. Increasingly, we have been seeing many businesses adopting Kotlin as their official language. It is user-friendly, easy to use, and highly efficient which makes it automatically a good choice among developers. You can choose an expert Kotlin developer and use his/her expertise to get the best for your upcoming apps.