In 2017, Google declared Kotlin as its second official language for Android application development. The language itself proving to be a modern, intuitive and pragmatic programming language. That’s why Kotlin's app development community is growing at a fast pace. For android app developers, using Kotlin with Java can reduce excessive boilerplate code which is a huge win for them.
In order to heighten productivity, Kotlin language comes with amazing functional features that support Java interoperability. It has effectively improved the coding experience of developers by introducing concise expressions, abstractions, and improved syntax.
As per the stats, there is an incredible rise in its demand in both businesses and developers community. Big brands like Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, Twitter, Netflix are switching to Kotlin app development platform. After workng on kotlin for a certain amount of time at our software outsourcing company here is our understanding about it-
1) Extend functionalities
Without disturbing the whole codebase, android app developers can easily extend the functionality of classes in Kotlin. They can build Kotlin functions using certain operators and extensions as done in C++ or Gosu programming languages.
Using Kotlin, you can easily compose the class with a new functionality even without inheriting the class.
2) Expressiveness
Kotlin helps in building impressive, powerful & easy-to-use abstractions by using its innovative features. It supports delegated properties and type-safe builders.
Let’s take some examples:
For type-safe builders:
<source lang="kotlin">import com.example.html.
fun result() =
html {
head {
title {+"XML encoding with Kotlin"}
}
body {
h1 {+"XML encoding with Kotlin"}
p {+"an alternative markup to XML"}
a(href = "http://kotlinlang.org") {+"Kotlin"}
p {
+"This is some"
b {+"mixed"}
+"text. For more see the"
a(href = "http://kotlinlang.org") {+"Kotlin"}
+"project"
}
p {+"some text"}
p {
for (arg in args)
+arg
}
}
}For delegated properties:
Kotlin supports delegated properties in the following way:
class Example {
var p: String by Delegate()
}3) Concise coding with Kotlin
With Kotlin, you can curb the problem of the complexity of a project with few lines of code. Unlike Java, it deals with less code and better productivity. Moreover, the shortcode in Kotlin is more reliable and produces fewer bugs in the project. It is easy to handle a Kotlin project.
The reason behind its great conciseness to the whole codebase is its features viz. Smart casts, type interface, data classes, and other properties. As the language is easy to read, you can easily apply changes to the code whenever required.
4) Great interoperability with Java
Kotlin is fully interoperable & compatible with Java and its frameworks. Without changing the whole project into Java, all the respective tools and frameworks can be easily added to the Kotlin platform. It means you can easily switch your project from Kotlin to Java or Java to Kotlin without altering its result.
Without affecting the project’s scalability and functionality, you can use both languages at the same time in that project. It will always provide you the robust output.
5) Easy to maintain
Kotlin supports all types of app development IDEs and Android studios. So, it can be considered as the one-stop-solution to all mobile app development needs. Developers can use the already adopted app development tools while coding in Kotlin which they are comfortable with. So, it becomes easy for them to maintain the whole codebase with existing tools.
6) Hosts safe & smart compilers
Kotlin comes with smart and safe compilers which not only saves the time of developers but also their efforts. These compilers can write a huge part of the codebase by itself. It also performs a number of checks by own which ultimately decreases the bugs rate and runtime errors in the code. This is because it works on the “fail-fast” principle which automatically detects errors at the stage of compilation rather than at the runtime stage.
7) Optimum use of Java frameworks & libraries
Android app developers can easily use Java frameworks and libraries into Kotlin programs. Kotlin offers easy integration by using the automation tools for various Java projects like Gradle, Apache Maven and many more.
8) Easy setup
Kotlin is an open-source and free to avail programming language for mobile app development. Hence, new businesses get a sigh of relief for not being costly as other languages do. In fact, it a wise deal to invest in Kotlin's project development.
9) Server-side development
Kotlin language seamlessly supports the server-side development because it is compatible with Java virtual machine. It provides optimum and scalable usage of various frameworks like Ktor, Kotlinx, Spring and many others for android app development.
10) Scalability
With fewer hardware requirements, Kotlin helps in building server-side apps that scale to a large number of clients as it provides support for the coroutines.
Let’s understand this with an example:
Kotlin’s support for coroutines opens up the door for asynchronous programming and scalable app development.
To start a coroutine, let’s use launch{} function:
Launch{
…
}
By default, coroutines are run on a shared pool of threads. And, one thread can run many coroutines.
Let’s have a look at the full program which uses launch function:
println("Start")
GlobalScope.launch {
delay(1000)
println("Hello")
}
Thread.sleep(2000)
println("Stop")
You can check out various projects here.
Final Note:
So, we have seen how Kotlin can benefit your next mobile app development project. Doing a project with a new programming language is a complex decision but if you choose the right one, it can bring you huge success.
Hence, Kotlin has proved to be a superior programming language for your next android app development project which not only brings business benefits but also provides developers an apple of opportunities to experiment with this modern app programming language.
