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Kotlin Native is exciting. But there's another way to run JVM languages, including Kotlin, on iOS: the open-source Multi OS Engine (https://multi-os-engine.org/

Kotlin Native is exciting. But there's another way to run JVM languages, including Kotlin, on iOS: the open-source Multi OS Engine (https://multi-os-engine.org/ https://multi-os-engine.org/), which basically brings ART (the Android Runtime) to iOS. Note: It doesn't bring the Android UI toolkit, or any cross-platform toolkit, to iOS, so you have to write UI code for iOS. But I think that's as it should be. Of course, there's a trade-off between Kotlin Native and Multi OS Engine. Kotlin Native is a lighter runtime. BUt with MOE, you can use arbitrary libraries that target the JVM (well, the JVM subset that works on Android). So MOE makes a lot more existing code available for iOS. For Kotlin Native to truly deliver on the promise of cross-platform business logic, a Kotlin library ecosystem independent of the JVM will need to develop. This space is going to be interesting to watch over the next little while.

kodablah 9y ago
> For Kotlin Native to truly deliver on the promise of cross-platform business logic, a Kotlin library ecosystem independent of the JVM will need to develop. Or someone writes a bridge between native Kotlin code and AOT'd JVM code. Or someone writes a kind of reverse compiler from JVM bytecode to Kotlin. Not sure how practical either is due to sheer JRE stdlib size.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Look at SubstrateVM. It's capable of making fully stripped AOT compiled binaries with a bundled JVM that only use the parts of the JRE library that are needed. Sort of like what Go can do.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    Yup. There is also jaotc coming along. Regardless, to use a them from Kotlin Native would require bridging between the two.
hota_mazi 9y ago
The Multi-OS engine has a much narrower scope than you describe: really just write apps on Android and run them on iOS. It's not a way to run a JVM language and certainly not a way to generate Kotlin code for native targets. Kotlin Native is very exciting because it's a potential threat across the board: not just to run iOS apps written in Kotlin, but also to generate native code from Kotlin in back end system, a domain that's currently heavily contested by both Go and Rust, and also to write Kotlin and generate Web Assembly. It's going to be a very interesting next lustrum.

kodablah 9y ago

> For Kotlin Native to truly deliver on the promise of cross-platform business logic, a Kotlin library ecosystem independent of the JVM will need to develop. Or someone writes a bridge between native Kotlin code and AOT'd JVM code. Or someone writes a kind of reverse compiler from JVM bytecode to Kotlin. Not sure how practical either is due to sheer JRE stdlib size.

peoplewindow 9y ago
Look at SubstrateVM. It's capable of making fully stripped AOT compiled binaries with a bundled JVM that only use the parts of the JRE library that are needed. Sort of like what Go can do.
- kodablah 9y ago
  Yup. There is also jaotc coming along. Regardless, to use a them from Kotlin Native would require bridging between the two.

hota_mazi 9y ago

The Multi-OS engine has a much narrower scope than you describe: really just write apps on Android and run them on iOS. It's not a way to run a JVM language and certainly not a way to generate Kotlin code for native targets. Kotlin Native is very exciting because it's a potential threat across the board: not just to run iOS apps written in Kotlin, but also to generate native code from Kotlin in back end system, a domain that's currently heavily contested by both Go and Rust, and also to write Kotlin and generate Web Assembly. It's going to be a very interesting next lustrum.