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I completely agree. Kotlin is close to the ideal language for me because it is just Java done right. If they want to go native and can do it without impairing

by afastow 10y ago

I completely agree. Kotlin is close to the ideal language for me because it is just Java done right. If they want to go native and can do it without impairing any of the JVM usability, I guess go for it. But I don't see the point behind it. I don't develop native apps so maybe I just don't know enough, but it seems like Go and Rust have already satisfied the desire for modern natively compiled languages. I feel the same way about the Kotlin compiling to Javascript ability. I write both the frontend and backend of web apps so I theoretically should be the exact target market for Kotlin to Javascript but I have no interest in it. ES6 and/or Typescript work better there and have an entire ecosystem around them. And even if they didn't work for me I'd prefer Dart which targets the frontend first instead of being an extra like Kotlin Javascript. My advice to Kotlin: Stick with what you do best. Kotlin is on the exact right track on the JVM but I think all these different modes are going to make people more cautious about adopting it in any of them because they'll worry it's a jack of all trades but master of none.

meddlepal 10y ago
Personally I'm intrigued by Kotlin Native as a replacement for Python and Go tools without requiring the JVM. I find it's a fundamentally better language than both and so being able to write CLI tools and other smaller stuff in it would be nice while still being able to leverage Kotlin + JVM on the backend would also be nice.
- afastow 10y ago
  Fair enough, I might be wrong and there might more of a desire for Kotlin Native than I thought there would be.
- jug 10y ago
  Same - a common language for JVM, JS, Native is both unique and intriguing to me. These are three really big targets. It's not that it would be unique in being a higher level compiled language or a language making Java development more fun to me, but being a common languge for among the most popular targets besides .NET today.
  - tutanchamun 10y ago
    Scala already does that with scala.js (production-ready) and scala-native (don't know if production-ready, probably not since it's only at 0.1 and they want to implement a better GC instead of relying on boehm like now). Just wanted to point that out in case you didn't know that already.
tutanchamun 10y ago
In my eyes going native is nice for the distribution of command line apps (if they are static binaries), but also for avoiding the startup time of the jvm. >[...] but it seems like Go and Rust have already satisfied the desire for modern natively compiled languages Not for me. Go's type system is too primitive, and Rust is maybe too low level if you don't need the advantages compared to languages with a GC. So a language like Kotlin with a better type system (than go) fits nicely in between the two (that might change if Rust get's a GC type). Especially since it will probably have (or has already?) better tooling considering that Jetbreains is behind it.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  > but also for avoiding the startup time of the jvm. Funny enough, all commercial JDKs do support AOT compilation to native code, and Oracle is slowly adding support for it as well.

by afastow 10y ago

meddlepal 10y ago

Personally I'm intrigued by Kotlin Native as a replacement for Python and Go tools without requiring the JVM. I find it's a fundamentally better language than both and so being able to write CLI tools and other smaller stuff in it would be nice while still being able to leverage Kotlin + JVM on the backend would also be nice.

afastow 10y ago
Fair enough, I might be wrong and there might more of a desire for Kotlin Native than I thought there would be.
jug 10y ago
Same - a common language for JVM, JS, Native is both unique and intriguing to me. These are three really big targets. It's not that it would be unique in being a higher level compiled language or a language making Java development more fun to me, but being a common languge for among the most popular targets besides .NET today.
- tutanchamun 10y ago
  Scala already does that with scala.js (production-ready) and scala-native (don't know if production-ready, probably not since it's only at 0.1 and they want to implement a better GC instead of relying on boehm like now). Just wanted to point that out in case you didn't know that already.

tutanchamun 10y ago

In my eyes going native is nice for the distribution of command line apps (if they are static binaries), but also for avoiding the startup time of the jvm. >[...] but it seems like Go and Rust have already satisfied the desire for modern natively compiled languages Not for me. Go's type system is too primitive, and Rust is maybe too low level if you don't need the advantages compared to languages with a GC. So a language like Kotlin with a better type system (than go) fits nicely in between the two (that might change if Rust get's a GC type). Especially since it will probably have (or has already?) better tooling considering that Jetbreains is behind it.

pjmlp 10y ago
> but also for avoiding the startup time of the jvm. Funny enough, all commercial JDKs do support AOT compilation to native code, and Oracle is slowly adding support for it as well.