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It's primarily utility, not politics. Yes, sure, Kotlin gets free press because Jetbrains and Google support it... but it's also because Kotlin is a brilliant l
by listenallyall 5y ago
It's primarily utility, not politics. Yes, sure, Kotlin gets free press because Jetbrains and Google support it... but it's also because Kotlin is a brilliant language, it had an initial use case that was in extremely high demand (building Android apps) and JVM compatibility meant it had an enormous ecosystem of compatible packages from the start. But instead of just sitting back and riding on its initial popularity (that would be "politics"), the language has added more and more use cases (backend, multiplatform, JS), expanded its scope (kotlinx extensions), and built a following and a Kotlin-specific ecosystem of packages and tools that often surpasses the JVM equivalents in utility and quality.
- ukj 5y agoThe "brilliance" of any technology is not intrinsic to the technology. It's determined by humans. It's always politics.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- listenallyall 5y agoI see, so when I need to travel from Los Angeles to New York, deciding whether to fly on a commercial airplane or ride a bicycle, is a political decision? Reducing travel time by 99.99% isn't an intrinsic feature of airplane travel?
- ukj 5y agoWould you say the 99.99% reduction in travel time is “brilliant”? Me, I like sight seeing. A bicycle ride sounds brilliant. Even though it is much slower.
- listenallyall 5y agoYes, I would absolutely state that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands, of brilliant innovations, technologies and engineering feats that make it possible for a 757 to exist, and fly so safely, routinely and inexpensively that the general public takes it entirely for granted.
- ukj 5y agoI’ll try make the point one last time then let you be. “Brilliance” is a human attitude towards technology. It is not an intrinsic property of technology.
- listenallyall 5y agoI agree that the word brilliant is an adjective that humans can choose to use or not use to describe a particular technology. Your initial statement was that making that decision is always due to politics, as opposed to a person's genuine opinion... or perhaps implying that people simply don't have the ability to evaluate something independently.
- ukj 5y agoBecause brilliance is about the people not about the technology it is political by definition
- addicted 5y agoIt actually is. A country which would have made different political decisions may have decided to not provide a direct airplane flight, or as good of an interstate road system that makes the drive possible. They may have provided high speed rail instead that could have potentially been better if that’s what the country had chosen.
- forty 5y agoI think the fact that Google was not updating the java usable on Android might have also played a big role in kotlin adoption, don't you think? Honestly I feel kotlin doesn't add much to modern java, and if possible I think it's generally better to use the native language to the platform. Probably a reason why kotlin is not that popular on the backend where people can use modern java :) I think jimbokun statement is 100 percent correct which doesn't mean kotlin is a bad language.
- listenallyall 5y ago> Honestly I feel kotlin doesn't add much to modern java In that case, I hope you won't mind that I'll be ignoring the rest of your opinions on this particular topic.