What is Kotlin ? An Overview

What is Kotlin

Kotlin is a general purpose, statically typed programming language developed by Jetbrains. It is an open-source project developed under the Apache 2.0 license. And has been seen as a better alternative to Java. It runs on JVM. Android mobile development has been Kotlin-first since Google I/O in 2019

Core features

Interoperable - Kotlin is 100% interoperable with Java, adding as much as we want in the present Java Code.
Concise - It is much more concise than Java, more expressive, and reduces the boilerplate code.
Null safety - Kotlin helps you avoid NullPointerException, and it’s been claimed by Google that android apps that use Kotlin are 20% less likely to crash.
Tool friendly - Kotlin program can be run using command line. It is also supported on Java IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse and Android Studio.

Some other features include having smartcast, better performance than Java, supporting coroutines and other modern programming concepts.

Sample Code

fun main() {
    println("Hello World")
}

Output

Hello World

Use Cases

Kotlin Multiplatform - It reduces time spent writing and maintaining the same code for different platforms while retaining the flexibility and benefits of native programming.
Kotlin for server-side - It can be used to set up and run server-side applications. Kotlin has full compatibility with existing Java-based technology stacks and frameworks like Spark and Spring.
Kotlin for Android - Kotlin has been preferred while building new Android development tools and content, such as Jetpack libraries, samples, and documentation by Google. Moreover, has a smaller runtime.
Kotlin for Javascript (Kotlin/JS) - Transpile your Kotlin code, the Kotlin standard library, and any compatible dependencies to JavaScript.
Kotlin Native (Kotlin/Native) - Technology for compiling Kotlin code to native binaries which can run without a virtual machine.
Kotlin for Data Science - It can also be used for building data pipelines to productionize machine learning models.

Apps built with Kotlin

Apps using Kotlin.jpg

Further learning resources

Thanks for reading !! 🙂

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