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It's surprising that Jetbrains/Kotlin which neither owns a platform, nor is in the mainstream runtime business like Oracle - managed to build an "extremely" mul

It's surprising that Jetbrains/Kotlin which neither owns a platform, nor is in the mainstream runtime business like Oracle - managed to build an "extremely" multiplatform language with excellent interoperability with other languages (Java/ C++/ JS/ Swift)! I'm pretty sure if Jetbrains somehow gets acquired by Google, Kotlin will reach greater heights than Swift.

SJMG 3y ago
I agree it's awesome. There was a strangle loop talk on the economics of creating a programming language; Kotlin is really the first of its kind being supported by an editor licensing program. I personally think Jetbrains getting acquired would be a nightmare. JB is very responsive and accessible when you have an issue with their libraries (Of which I've found many). Google is an impenetrable super-corp and they already endorse Kotlin heavily for Android development. What's more in typical Google fashion, this would inevitably spell the death of Compose Multiplatform UI or Flutter when a higher-up learned they were paying for two competing solutions. Flutter has more users, so Compose would join the graveyard. Best I can tell no one really uses Swift for anything other than desktop/ios apps. Kotlin is only gaining traction in industry on the backend. I don't really know how relevant Tiobe indices are, but I would expect Kotlin to overtake Swift in a year or two.
- myko 3y ago
  Swift Vapor is really nice but Kotlin is way better supported, the DSL available for writing HTML using Ktor is much nicer than those available for Swift, for example. I would love if more folks would ship Swift backends, but JVM folks moving from Java to Kotlin is a natural progression and I don't see Swift closing that gap
dagmx 3y ago
Please no. 1. Google has multiple in house languages already. They somehow haven’t made them work well together. 2. Google already tried their hand at Swift when Lattner was there. It was really cool, but died on the vine. 3. Google is very easily distracted and will kill off things that aren’t critical or bringing in enough new customers. I like my Jetbrains IDEs to want a company as poorly managed as Google take it over. Their offerings would quickly be killed off in the name of “unifying them” and then suddenly that one solution will die as well for anything except for Android Java.
- valty 3y ago
  JetBrains is an amazing company. The fact that you can log an issue on their public tracker for any product, and some human is triaging this instantly.
myko 3y ago
I like both Kotlin and Swift but much prefer Swift as a language. That said, I don't disagree that if Google backed it properly (seems unlikely now, considering they just fired the guy who led Guava/Guice, for example), it would do really well.
- pohl 3y ago
  That "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, when a company like Google is in context. They are an efficient pipeline for sending cool technologies to the graveyard if there ever was one.

SJMG 3y ago

I agree it's awesome. There was a strangle loop talk on the economics of creating a programming language; Kotlin is really the first of its kind being supported by an editor licensing program. I personally think Jetbrains getting acquired would be a nightmare. JB is very responsive and accessible when you have an issue with their libraries (Of which I've found many). Google is an impenetrable super-corp and they already endorse Kotlin heavily for Android development. What's more in typical Google fashion, this would inevitably spell the death of Compose Multiplatform UI or Flutter when a higher-up learned they were paying for two competing solutions. Flutter has more users, so Compose would join the graveyard. Best I can tell no one really uses Swift for anything other than desktop/ios apps. Kotlin is only gaining traction in industry on the backend. I don't really know how relevant Tiobe indices are, but I would expect Kotlin to overtake Swift in a year or two.

myko 3y ago
Swift Vapor is really nice but Kotlin is way better supported, the DSL available for writing HTML using Ktor is much nicer than those available for Swift, for example. I would love if more folks would ship Swift backends, but JVM folks moving from Java to Kotlin is a natural progression and I don't see Swift closing that gap

dagmx 3y ago

Please no. 1. Google has multiple in house languages already. They somehow haven’t made them work well together. 2. Google already tried their hand at Swift when Lattner was there. It was really cool, but died on the vine. 3. Google is very easily distracted and will kill off things that aren’t critical or bringing in enough new customers. I like my Jetbrains IDEs to want a company as poorly managed as Google take it over. Their offerings would quickly be killed off in the name of “unifying them” and then suddenly that one solution will die as well for anything except for Android Java.

valty 3y ago
JetBrains is an amazing company. The fact that you can log an issue on their public tracker for any product, and some human is triaging this instantly.

myko 3y ago

I like both Kotlin and Swift but much prefer Swift as a language. That said, I don't disagree that if Google backed it properly (seems unlikely now, considering they just fired the guy who led Guava/Guice, for example), it would do really well.

pohl 3y ago
That "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting, when a company like Google is in context. They are an efficient pipeline for sending cool technologies to the graveyard if there ever was one.