According to Jeffrey Van Gogh, Google’s tech lead for Android Studio, Android Development has become ‘Kotlin-First’. The answer to this was revealed at latest Google I/O conference where consequences for both Java and Kotlin were spelled out. Google will keep supporting Java Programming Language in many aspects. It has made a sharp exit from any non-JVM languages like Go and Dart and has accentuated Kotlin as their ambassador in case of Android App Development.
Comparing Java vs. Kotlin
| Comparison | Java | Kotlin |
| Modern or Old | Java is not a modern language. | Kotlin is a modern programming language |
| Procedural or Object Oriented | Java is a procedural programming language. | Kotlin is an object-oriented language. |
| What it does not cover? | It has endless try-catch blocks, null-unsafety, NullPointerExceptions and lack of extendability. Java can also create issues with the Android API design. A programmer has to remember quite a lot while coding in Java as it does not feature IntelliSense. | Kotlin covers all these issues effectively. |
| Syntax | Its syntax is very complex and long code is prone to errors. | Has a very simple code and chances of errors are less. |
| Which applications does these support? | Enterprise Applications and apps like Finnacle (for financial services and banking etc.), websites like GitHub and Wikipedia, etc. | Developers are approaching machine learning, data processing, real-time video, voice modification, automatic picture, and corrections – far better than the approach followed by Java developers who have to reluctantly write features twice, thrice, until they are able to find the right library, involve a multiplication of bugs and lose a huge amount of time simultaneously. |
More Reasons to Prefer Kotlin as Android Programming Language
Kotlin just ended the long legal trouble between Oracle and Java and is now officially supported by Google for all further Android Development Efforts. A simple program looks like this:
Print “Hello World” in Kotlin
Print “Hello World” in Java
Both of the above code excerpts look almost similar, it requires substantial time and effort to install, update, compile and run a Java program as compared to Kotlin that features much less code, less typing and even less maintenance comparatively. Applications like Atlassian, Square, Flipboard, Pinterest have embraced Kotlin for fine interoperable reasons between Java and Kotlin. Recent Kotlin plug-in comes bundled with Android Studio 3.0 and is of course open-source.
Android App Development services adopted Kotlin to make usual programming an enjoyable and relaxing experience. It was found to be extremely compatible with Java, comes along with customizable translations, is readable as it makes use of named parameters and default arguments; there are no NullPointerExceptions at runtime and also reduces the number of variants of overloaded functions. Further, it features a variation of a switch statement that allows matching on arbitrary expressions. It supports smart cast. Kotlin also makes use of existing functions with the help of helper class to wrap String.
There are more reasons to rejoice and ascertain of if Kotlin is the true heir apparent of Java. Its syntax imbibes destructuring declaration. It incorporates lambdas and the ability to create builders that use JSON-like syntax that also happens to be syntactically valid. And it is expressive with lots of functional parameters. All this and more lets Android developers build complex data structures (with declarative syntax) along with having inline access to the full capabilities of the Kotlin language.
Clipping
Kotlin has this amazing ability to fit securely in the software life cycle with the help of operator overloading, null safety, smart casts and extension functions. It voraciously speaks about its huge API collection, being careful with all lazy initializations and Java Stream API’s. Kotlin countenances explicit parameter passing in the function definition. It flings several standard library functions with the idea of introducing the latest functionalities into existing classes. Kotlin also takes care to crack immutability thus casting away the side effects caused by other functions. This open-source high-level programming language cracks via sealed classes to create limited hierarchies that act like enumerations but allows programmers to create multiple instances. Moreover, Kotlin language manifests singletons, extending the concept of enums, interfaces, and classes to fill in the gap left by Java programming language. Plus, finally, best android app development companies have additional reasons to implement Kotlin as it figures out how well to handle strings which baffled java programmers (String interpolation). There is more to learn in reactive programming in Kotlin Android with RxKotlin. See how it can be implemented within Android app projects. With this incredible versatility, can you wait to see the magic happen in your code!