When you hear Android App Development which programming language first comes to your mind? usually, you will immediately think of Java.
Because We all know Java language is the most widely used language for the development of the Android application. Java is the favorite of many developers and it has a large developer community.
But that doesn’t mean java stays always the best. Now Java is bit old, verbose, and has been slow to moderate and modernize. But now Kotlin is here for a better alternate option.
OpenJDK developers are beginning to cross over any gap with Java 8, yet Android doesn’t utilize all the features of Java 8. But the developers are still stuck in the older versions of java are Java 7 and 6 worlds. that won’t improve much within a reasonable time-frame. Now here’s the Kotlin comes into the picture. This almost new open source language based on JVM is gaining traction with android software engineers.
There are other JVM programming languages you could endeavor to use on Android, yet Kotlin offers combinations with Android Studio, Google’s essential IDE for Android, that no language has, other than Java.
Kotlin
Kotlin was first introduced by JetBrains in 2011, which is the originator of IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, and many other top IDEs. It got its name from ‘Kotlin Island’ in St. Petersburg, Russia. Kotlin was actually created to be better than Java in every possible way. But JetBrains didn’t put an effort to write an entirely new IDE’s from scratch. This was the reason why Kotlin was made 100% interoperable with Java.
Kotlin is a statically-typed, open-source programming language that can run effectively on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM).
Kotlin is developed by JetBrains and is officially supported by Google.
Why should Java developer switch to Kotlin? What are the reasons? Here we discuss all the new features of Kotlin.
Pros of Kotlin
- Easy To switch From java to Kotlin: Install Kotlin plugin and add it into Gradle build file and convert.
- Less Coding: Kotlin has been designed in a way that it requires way less coding in comparison to Java.
- Java-Interoperable Programming Language: Simply java methods can be called from Kotlin.This feature is beneficial not only for the developers but for the companies that have a large Java code base.
- Easy to Learn: Kotlin much easier as learn comparing to java. It doesn’t require any prior mobile app development knowledge.
- Open Source: Kotlin is open source language so you don’t have to spend money.
- Robust and Secure: Java comes with some well-documented language issues like endless try-catch blocks, null-unsafety, NullPointerExceptions and lack of extensibility.
- Reliable: The latest version of Kotlin is reversely compatible with all the previous versions. This resolves the biggest pain point of Android developers: dealing with multiple versions.
- Improved Code Maintainability Meaning Faster Development Time
Cons of Kotlin
- Compilation Speed: Slower compilation speed than Java (In some cases, it is very fast, and in other cases, it is significantly slower).
- Small Community Support: Kotlin has a no larger community like java. There will be lots of queries which will be unanswered.
Fewer developers Available: There are very limited numbers of developers available for Kotlin. The talent gap in the Android app development market has increased in regards to Kotlin.
There are some apps which are built in Kotlin :
- Uber
- Trello
- Evernote
- Postmates
- Corda etc.
Conclusion
Developers Know Java is still ruling on Android programming but as a developer, you need to update daily basis. Take your time for getting familiar with Kotlin. But if you’re a beginner looking for a new challenge, it makes sense to try Kotlin, especially if you’d like to work on innovative projects for startups.
And I am sure above advantages of Kotlin must have convinced you why to choose Kotlin for android app development.
