Kotlin — Google’s most preferred language for Android app development
Since Kotlin is a new and powerful trend, everyone of us must be aware about its features. Google is giving really very high importance to this language when it comes to mobile application development. READ and KNOW! Why?
In this digital new age, it is not tough to say that there is a rapid surge in the android application development process. It is widely said that Java has been the most preferred programming language among developers for mobile app development. It is not a far fetched fact that Kotlin has taken over Java in recent years as per the development and acknowledgment from Google’s I/O conference in 2017. It has been officially announced Kotlin’s first in development for android apps.
Why I am emphasizing on the importance of Kotlin for Android App Development? In the forthcoming of the blog, I am going to discuss the transition from Java to Kotlin for android app development.
Let’s begin!
A huge shoutout from a business perspective for companies like Uber, Pinterest, Evernote, and Square who have shown faith in Kotlin as a programming language for android app development. It could serve as an ideal choice for business owners to invest in Kotlin developers for their android app development process.
The perfect combustion of Android and Kotlin both backed by Google has an insinuated android app development process with better compatibilities and excellent tool support.
According to a survey by Realm report, Kotlin has been touted as the most preferred android programming language by android app developers.
Though, there have been many reasons stating why Kotlin has been the most preferred programming language for android app development.
I am stating the top-notch reasons on How Kotlin has become the new age preference for Android App Development:
1. Cross-Platform Support:
Multi-platform native support development has been Kotlin’s biggest strength. It is highly compatible with Java and runs on Java Virtual Machine. Thus, the reusability of code has been the biggest asset for Kotlin. It supports cross-platforms such as JVM, JavaScript, Android, Linux, Mac, Windows, and many other embedded systems such as STM32. Android developers can create an iOS app with XCode, using the shared Kotlin library form the iOS app, and then use Kotlin from Swift.
2. A Safer Alternative than Java:
No doubt, Kotlin has been a safer alternative than Java as the code will result in lesser system failures and application crashes. It has more robust code than Java, thus android developers don’t have to write again the same lines of code to operate the same function in an iteration.
3. Speed and Performance:
Kotlin’s development process has been consuming less time and it has been speeding up day to day development tasks by offering a myriad of features that facilitate in easing out the development tasks to a minimum. It will speed up the android app development time while maintaining the codebase.
4. Kotlin Community Supports Developers:
The rising popularity of Kotlin has been supported by a proactive Kotlin Community which has been active in answering the queries of developers at pace. A platform like Kotlin Slack has given a platform to android developers to address their concerns for knowledge sharing and expert opinion. With the increase in adoption, there will be more resources available online to address Kotlin in a more reformed manner through online tutorials, courses and much more.
5. Kotlin Supports Functional Programming:
Functional programming has been one of the core development paradigm features that allow developers to multi-task efficiently and consistently. Kotlin has better support in functional programming rather than Java which was introduced in Java8. Android app developer’s performance can be inlined while optimizing the development speed which is rather impossible in Java.
6. Kotlin: An Enterprise Language:
Kotlin is certainly not a new kid on the block. It has always been around in the development phase until JetPack launched Kotlin in 2015. However, Kotlin was developed for solving real-world development problems. It was developed keeping the enterprise in mind. It was not developed to build or innovate a revolutionary product though it was developed to modernize and familiarise features for enterprise developers.
7. Kotlin’s Developer Perspective: Easier to Learn than Java:
No matter if you are an experienced Java developer, the transition from Java to Kotlin has been easier as Kotlin has an intuitive resemblance with Java which makes the process of adopting Kotlin, a not so complex process which in return will reduce the complexities of the app development process.
8. Kotlin is more concise than Java:
It has been said that Kotlin has been more concise than Java. It has been seen in many cases that it can help in solving the same complex problem with fewer lines of code. It helps in maintaining the code’s readability, and usability. It will ease out the process of android developers to read, write and change more efficiently and effectively.
9. Kotlin is fun and easy to use:
It has been said that Kotlin has been fun and easy to use. It will exploit your creative instincts that will open up a whole new world of opportunities and can solve similar problems in different ways. Java has limitations in terms of feature capabilities as compared to Kotlin. There is nothing much more that you can do with Java as a programming language.
10. Kotlin comes with the Safer and Smarter Compiler:
Kotlin was developed while keeping a competent compiler in mind that can detect errors at compile time rather than run time, leveraging the fail-fast principle. It performs a lot of checks while reducing the number of run-time errors and bugs in the preceding code.
Final Note: Are you up for Kotlin?
To sum up, it is not difficult to say that Kotlin has been adopted by the masses for app production. Kotlin has the ability to develop a native android application in an intuitive and concise syntax that can save hefty development costs. Though Kotlin is still young as a programming language and it has been proven as a stable platform for building production apps.
