Kotlin: The future of Android App development

Every now and then we can see major or minor technological updates. Tech giants hold developer conferences (Google I/O or Microsoft Build) to share the updates and announce upcoming products. In this process, Google has introduced a new programming language for Android app development named as Kotlin. JetBrains is behind the development of Kotlin and is currently working to bring Kotlin to iOS and embedded systems as well making it a one-stop language for all application areas.

Kotlin is a statically typed programming language based on Java Virtual Machine which is compatible with Android and is concise, expressive, and designed to be type- and null-safe. Kotlin works smoothly with the Java language, therefore, making it easy for the developers to use Java language and incrementally adding Kotlin code. Above all, it makes development faster, easier and more fun.

Advantages of Kotlin:

Concise:

In many cases, Kotlin is way more concise than Java such as solving the problems with fewer lines of code. This improves readability and code maintainability which helps developers to write, read and change the code more effectively. Type inference, smart casts, data classes, and properties help Kotlin to achieve conciseness.

Safer Code:

Kotlin code prevents common programming mistakes by design which results in lesser system failures and application crashes. Whereas, these common errors occur while using Java. With Kotlin, developers can think about potential problems with their code in a detailed manner, in other words, it will help them to write stronger codes.

Better support for functional programming:

Functional programming was introduced in Java 8, but Kotlin has better support for it. It is a development model that allows developers to solve tasks more easily and consistently. Performance can be improved with the help of lining which is not possible in Java.

Lesser error and bugs:

Whenever possible Kotlin compiler aims to fail fast which greatly facilitates searching for bugs and can prevent them in the first place. Therefore, it performs many checks, avoiding runtime errors and reducing the cost and effort of fixing errors.

Code base shrink:

Technical debt is a deadweight carried by the developers because of the shortcuts made in programming, often to reach a deadline. It slows down future development resulting in reduced productivity. With Kotlin, code base shrinks while increasing the quality at the same time and if implemented correctly it can also reduce lines of code by 20–30%.

Faster development tasks:

With the number of handy features, Kotlin facilitates everyday development tasks something that Java does not offer. Default parameter values, object declarations, extension functions are some of the features which speed up Android app development time while keeping the code base more maintainable.

In addition to Java, Kotlin is the most strongly supported Java Virtual Machine language in the Android ecosystem. Kotlin is interoperable with Java as both generate the same bytecode, therefore, you can start using Kotlin in your existing project with all your old Java code.

Once you understand the syntax, Kotlin is way more readable and short as compared to Java. In conclusion, Kotlin makes a developer’s life easier than any other language.