Introduction:
Kotlin is a modern programming language and in future, it might replace the Java language for Android development. In this blog, we will see in detail about its features and its unparalleled attributes. We will see some of the important reasons for Kotlin becoming the official language for Android app development. Kotlin was developed by JetBrains, the developers behind Android Studio IDE. Kotlin community is constantly growing and everyone is discussing it. In this post, we will see how it is different from Java and see in detail about the language per se.
Language overview:
The latest version of Kotlin is 1.2.41. Kotlin is a statically typed programming language. It means that the type of variable is considered at compile time instead of runtime. The basic examples of other statically typed programming languages other than Kotlin are C, C++, C#, Java, Scala, JADE, Ada, and Pascal.
Areas where Kotlin language can be used:
Kotlin can be utilized for various types of web and mobile app development such as Client-side web, Server-side web, Android app, Mobile app, Client-side with JavaScript, and Data Science.
Java and kotlin:
Kotlin works with Java at the same time. It means that you can add the Kotlin code to the existing project even if it is based on Java language. Due to Kotlin’s are bi-directional use, android application developers were able to call into Java language from Kotlin or vice-versa. Which is why kotlin is quite different from other languages.
JetBrains has started working on Kotlin, A statically typed programming language, which runs on a ( JVM ) Java virtual machine. JetBrains has done a remarkable job by fusing the Kotlin programming language in the IDE (Android Studio) that is based on the IntelliJ platform. Google has announced that it is making Kotlin a first-class language for writing or to android application developing. We’ve prepared five reasons on why Kotlin has become the official programming language for android application development.
Reasons why Kotlin has become the official programming language for Android Application Development:
- 100 % of Interoperable with Java.
- Kotlin is Safe
- Performance
- It is Concise
- Great Support for Integrated Development Environment(IDEs) and Tools.
100 % of Interoperable with Java:
The main reason why Kotlin has become the first-class language in Android is that it runs smoothly on JVM (Java Virtual Machine). JetBrains developed Kotlin as a JVM programming language, making it 100% interoperable with Java programming language. Android developers can use a lot of Java libraries whilst writing code for Android application in Kotlin. Android developers can generate Java code from Kotlin code using the converters provided by JetBrains.
Kotlin is Safe:
Android developer biggest pains for while writing the java code in null pointer exception. It is hard to imagine that server developers have suffered from the NullPointerException while writing the codes. Most common drawbacks in many programming languages. Including Java is that accessing a member of a NULL reference will result in a NULL reference exception.
Performance:
When it comes to the speed, Kotlin does not outperform Java. but, the programming language, Kotlin increases the execution speed of lambda functions by supporting inline functions. It’s has a compact runtime library that adds few methods as compared to Java at runtime.
It is Concise:
The class written in Kotlin is more concise and compact as compared to class written in Java programming language. It means that less coding is required in Kotlin as an official programming language. Kotlin has reduced the boilerplate codes as compared to Java. So that the code, which is written in Kotlin is quite compact. Saves development time, fewer bugs, and eventually reduce costs. It’s main reasons behind the kotlin popularity in a short span of time.
Great Support for Integrated Development Environment(IDEs) and Tools:
Android developers can take advantage of robust IDEs. as the IDE has full tooling support from Android Studio. It’s designed with complete tooling support for Kotlin. The developers can write code for the Android application in Kotlin more efficiently and with the development tools provided by Kotlin team. Android extensions to eradicate the findViewById() function using Kotlin. The android extension is computer extension, which allows Android application developers to get rid of findViewById() calls in the code, and to replace with the synthetic computer-generated properties. Android extensions enable programmers to the replace the findViewById() function with the synthetic compiler-generated properties. They use libraries such as Anko (Kotlin Library) in order to fasten the process of android application development. All these components help android application developers to keep the application code more readable and clean.
Conclusion:
Kotlin has become quickly popular among developers in a short span of time, and become the official language for android application development.
–
Manikandan K,
Android Development Team,
Mallow Technologies.