Kotlin Programming has launched its first stable version 1.0 in February this year, 2016 after being launched as a beta version on May 2015. It is developed by the Jet Brains team at Google I/O 2014 conference. After being open-sourced under Apache 2.0 license, it can be used for commercial projects also. It was designed to work with Java 6 and works well with any Java library or framework.
Here are 11 reasons that will make you love Kotlin programming language:
Compatible with Android Studio:
Since the Android world uses java so having compatibility with Android Studio would increase your productivity even more. The android studio plugin allows viewing type of variables, refactoring and so on. It also automatically configures Kotlin compiler and build tools for android development.
Compile To JVM:
With the help of this feature you can develop full-fledged applications that run everywhere where there is a jvm including computers, servers, mobiles etc. You just have to write your code once and then compile it to run on different platforms as required.
Null Safety:
In java developers have to worry about null pointer exceptions which cause crashes but with kotlin you don’t need to worry about nulls. Since smart casting allows any variable of non-null type reference to be safely casted to a type containing a null value if its actual type is a subtype (inclusion) of the type containing the null value.
Readability:
Its readability is concise and simple so it provides more readable code than java. It has to string templates, infix notation etc which decreases the chances of coding errors. The syntax is not too much complex so you can easily learn kotlin in less time compared to other languages like Java or C++.
Concise Notation for Lambdas:
There are many short forms available for lambda functions that help developers write compact code that does more stuff in lesser number of lines.
For Comprehension To Make Code More Concise:
This feature makes it easy to filter, map and reduce collections by providing a friendlier way for loops. This increases your productivity to a great extent.
Functional Programming:
Kotlin has many features that help you write clean functional style code with ease. It provides syntactic sugar for lambda expressions, function types etc to make the code concise and easier to read. This helps reduce bugs by providing better readability. You can take the assistance of the DBA administrators.
Safe Constructors and Getter/Setters Generation:
Its safe constructors are perfect for immutable objects or when you want to create an object without having complete control over its initial state which reduces memory leaks. It also allows generating getters and setters using default visibility modifiers based on constructor parameters. With this feature it is easier to create fluent builders that take care of ensuring all fields are initialized correctly before calling any other method.
Multiline String Templates:
Kotlin’s syntax is designed to make the code concise and readable like python unlike java which makes it more complex, verbose and less readable. The multiline string templates are used for generating any kind of text by replacing special tags with expressions resulting in cleaner code. Just like python its syntax allows you to use whitespaces freely without worrying about closing your tags. It also provides features like string interpolation which takes the pain out of combining strings, variables and other content into a single string before passing it on. This helps reduce bugs by preventing invalid data from being combined with static tag content so easily.
Smart Casting:
It has excellent for type casting where developer can cast nullable variables to non-null types during an assignment or function call without needing explicit checks for null values. This allows developers to focus on the actual logic rather than thinking of if things are null before casting them which reduces coding errors.
Minification and Obfuscation:
It has features that help you protect your source code from reverse engineering by transforming it into a different representation while still allowing the transformed code to execute normally. It also provides support for string obfuscation using the same approach as Pro Guard so it’s difficult for someone looking at byte code to figure out what is happening in your app even though they have access to the original source code.
Conclusion:
Kotlin is an excellent language that helps you write less code without any compromise on performance and tooling. It’s simple, concise and easy to read so it reduces bugs by providing more readable code than java. You can get started with kotlin or start building new projects in kotlin right away.
