Kotlin to take off?

[mxnerd]

Kotlin, developed by Jetbrain, meant to be a better Java language.

Google made Kotlin language official for Android development earlier.

Now Google release Android KTX tools for Kotlin, makes it even easier for developing Android APP.

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/02/introducing-android-ktx-even-sweeter.html

Think many Java developers will switch to the new language in Android environment, which still compiles to JVM.

 

[Cogman]

Depends. I worry that kotlin will end the same way the CoffeeScript did. It is nicer, but I worry it isn't nice enough to justify switching.

 

[mxnerd]

It's predicted that Kotlin will surpass Java by the end of 2018 for Android development.

https://realm.io/realm-report/

Expedia also adopted Kotlin over 2 years.

https://techblog.expedia.com/2017/05/18/learnings-from-two-years-of-kotlin/

 

[Gryz]

When you read about new technology, new programming-languages, new network-protocols, new "paradigms", new anything, it seems all that new stuff is very exciting. And very good, with more benefits, new improvements, it's awesome. Everybody is talking about it. You see it everywhere.

Reality is that most companies use old proven technology. And once something is deployed, it'll stay deployed for years, 10 years, maybe 20 years. I write code in C. So do a few hundred of my collegues. That language is 46 years old. Yes, computer science is changing all the time. But it takes time. And new stuff will not replace old stuff overnight. Sorry.

 

[urvile]

I remember when node was replacing everything. I am yet to see it. As noted above companies particularly large ones rely on proven technology. For a number of reasons one being skill sets, pool of available talent, what's being taught at universities, what advantages the language brings to RAD, design, how easy it is to maintain etc. I have been using C# since 2008. The major switch I have seen in the last few years on the back end is to .NET core.

On the front end it's been the move towards javascript frameworks. Like angular and react. Back to the OP 🙂 maybe kotlin will replace java in the android space? I am not a phone developer so I don't really know.

I like JetBrains resharper so much that I have my own license and take it with me from job to job.

 

[DaveSimmons]

The other barrier is libraries.

For Windows, if you write code in either native C/C++ or the full (non-Core, non-UWP) .NET then you can find existing pre-written libraries to do almost anything, and in many cases the library is free open source. That can save months of initial development time, and you get near free maintenance on those libraries for as long as the library is actively developed.

With each new flavor of the month you're back to square one and lose those millions (billions?) of lines of available code unless you can find wrappers to connect them to the new hotness.