Kotlin killer features for programmers and software engineers (part 2)

In a previous story, I’ve discussed why Kotlin is a better Java than Java: with its concise syntax, its convenient features (type inference, extension functions, operator overload), it’s a pleasure to work with this language (and, in my opinion, makes it painful when I have to work again with Java).

Writing software is not just about writing code, there are a lot more of things to think about

But when you’re building software, the comfort of the developers should not be the main feature you expect from a language. You need something which is:

• Robust, safe (null-safe, thread-safe, etc.)
• Easy to test, easy to debug
• Reusable and easy to maintain
• With a rich ecosystem of available libraries, compatible with the existing codebase of the company
• Portable

And Kotlin being designed to be a language suitable for the needs of the industry, it provides several exciting features to address these issues.

Functional programming and internal DSL

Kotlin isn’t a “pure functional language” like Clojure or Scala intends to be. Yet, it offers a lot of the characteristics provided by these functional languages.