Category Archives: Android Application Development

Kotlin – A paradigm shift in android app development

0 Comments By: Purvi Talati

Kotlin is a statically typed programming language for modern multi-platform applications!

Why should you turn your next project (or existing one) to Kotlin?
The simple answer is, Kotlin is Concise, Safe, Interoperable, Tool-friendly! We will discuss it in detail in this blog post!

Java – A step back
Java is the most widely used(most usable) language for Android development, but that doesn’t mean it is always the best choice. Java is old, verbose, error-prone. Kotlin is a worthy alternative. Google's primary IDE for Android has no language support other than Java. Java doesn't have support for lambdas, method references, streams, try-with-resources.

Kotlin
Kotlin adoption for Android is raised over the years. Kotlin is an excellent fit for Android not only because it gives developers what they want, but also because it matches the spirit of Android.
Below are some advantages of kotlin over java.

Easy to learn
Kotlin can be learned easily by reading some language reference. Kotlin is completely interoperable with Java, you’ll also be able to use the majority of Java libraries and frameworks in your Kotlin projects even advanced frameworks that rely on annotation processing. Syntax of kotlin is simple and easy to understand.

IDE Compatibility (Tool-friendly, Interpretable, Highest Compatibility with Java)
Kotlin is developed by JetBrains. Plugin for kotlin works smoothly and it is easy to convert your code from java to kotlin. Once, the set up for kotlin plugins is completed, you will not face any problem in configuring your project in kotlin.

Kotlin null safety (Much safer)
Kotlin forces us to declare variables. So, the system helps us to avoid null pointer exceptions. Kotlin refuses to compile code which doesn't have any default value.

Adopted by well-known companies
Famous companies like Pinterest, Trello, Uber, Evernote has adopted kotlin in their development. Along side, Hire Mobile Developer team has helped our clients to leverage the power of Kotlin for their apps. You can  hire android app developer from our team to get a kotlin expert.

Kotlin is multi-platform
In Kotlin 1.1, Kotlin JS (which was experimental until then) was finally released, so you can also do front-end development using Kotlin. Kotlin with RoboVM allows you to use Kotlin on iOS.

Kotlin Sharing platform

Short coding (Enhance Development Speed with Less Coding)
This feature of kotlin saves a lot of programming time. You can assign too many properties in a single line.
Example 
Java

public class User
{
    private String name;
    public void setName(String userName)
    {
        this.name = name;    
    }
    public String getName(){
        return this.name;
    }
}

Kotlin

data class User(var name: String)

Smart casts
In java, we need to check the type of the object and cast that object according to our need. Kotlin smartly cast object and it can handle redundant casting for you.
a String as we declared it as an Any:  //Any is a keyword which is used when there is no any specification for variable

Lightweight kotlin library
The library which is used for Android is lightweight. It has only 6000 extra methods which are compatible with android method count restrictions.

Compilation Time
Kotlin supports incremental compilation so we can reduce gradle overhead for cleaning builds.

Conclusion
Kotlin is the most recent and powerful language that overcome problems suffered by Android developers using Java. It is very simple to get started and developers can also introduce it into existing projects. Kotlin makes the app development process faster as it requires approximately 20% less code as compared to Java. Kotlin is supported by JetBeans – a partner of Google. The strength of open source makes it more appealing to the app developers.

Bonus
While publishing this blog post, Kotlin is even more equipped with multiplatform development approach and you can develop apps for Android and iOS both by reusing your business logic developed only once!
Get in touch with us to hire a kotlin android app developer today!