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I was hoping to hear more about his opinion on Kotlin, since it's, basically, replaced Java on Android, but there's little there outside of saying it runs on th

by binkHN 5y ago

I was hoping to hear more about his opinion on Kotlin, since it's, basically, replaced Java on Android, but there's little there outside of saying it runs on the JVM.

glhaynes 5y ago
Has it really? (Totally honest question, I don't follow that space well.) If Some Random Company is starting a new Android app today, is it more likely to be in Kotlin than Java? That's cool, if so.
- binkHN 5y ago
  Yep! Been this way for a little while now. More detail at https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first...
  - blibble 5y ago
    as someone who's been writing Java for Android since 1.0 (but not much recently) my main pain point with it was more the API rather than Java (e.g. the activity lifecycle, the 20 layers of compatibility stuff, contexts everywhere) did this clear some of that up?
    - binkHN 5y ago
      Not really. It just another language, but, IMHO, threads have gotten A LOT better through Kotlin’s Coroutines. That said, the libraries have gotten a lot better and the new UI toolkit, Compose, addresses a lot of shortcomings, but it’s still early.
    - ptx 5y ago
      Kotlin has a lot of features aimed at mitigating the pain of working with Java APIs, such as extension functions. So you can sort of fix the API in a library or in your own code. (But it doesn't help with the lifecycle or reducing the number of layers.)
PedroBatista 5y ago
I'm not so sure about that, yes it's an important language and has oficial support from Google, but by the amount of usage we can say Dart ( in Flutter ) also "replaced" Java on Android. Don't get me wrong I HATE Java on Android and everything GUI related, but I'm don't think Java will be replaced anytime soon.
- binkHN 5y ago
  Not sure I agree with that. More on "Android’s Kotlin-first approach" is at https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first. I haven't heard the same about Flutter and Android's new UI toolkit, Compose, is written in Kotlin.

by binkHN 5y ago

I was hoping to hear more about his opinion on Kotlin, since it's, basically, replaced Java on Android, but there's little there outside of saying it runs on the JVM.

glhaynes 5y ago

Has it really? (Totally honest question, I don't follow that space well.) If Some Random Company is starting a new Android app today, is it more likely to be in Kotlin than Java? That's cool, if so.

binkHN 5y ago
Yep! Been this way for a little while now. More detail at https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first...
- blibble 5y ago
  as someone who's been writing Java for Android since 1.0 (but not much recently) my main pain point with it was more the API rather than Java (e.g. the activity lifecycle, the 20 layers of compatibility stuff, contexts everywhere) did this clear some of that up?
  - binkHN 5y ago
    Not really. It just another language, but, IMHO, threads have gotten A LOT better through Kotlin’s Coroutines. That said, the libraries have gotten a lot better and the new UI toolkit, Compose, addresses a lot of shortcomings, but it’s still early.
  - ptx 5y ago
    Kotlin has a lot of features aimed at mitigating the pain of working with Java APIs, such as extension functions. So you can sort of fix the API in a library or in your own code. (But it doesn't help with the lifecycle or reducing the number of layers.)

PedroBatista 5y ago

I'm not so sure about that, yes it's an important language and has oficial support from Google, but by the amount of usage we can say Dart ( in Flutter ) also "replaced" Java on Android. Don't get me wrong I HATE Java on Android and everything GUI related, but I'm don't think Java will be replaced anytime soon.

binkHN 5y ago
Not sure I agree with that. More on "Android’s Kotlin-first approach" is at https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first https://developer.android.com/kotlin/first. I haven't heard the same about Flutter and Android's new UI toolkit, Compose, is written in Kotlin.