An Android Developer’s Guide
If you live in modern world and if you own any smart device, then at least one must have been designed by Google. Android operating system is known to run on all android devices which are listed here [1]. In today’s date, it has got around billion users worldwide. Now the question arises, who makes the platform work? Yes, Android developers make everything possible with their awesome skills set to design an application that can be used by everyone from students to business managers. The answer lies in a programming language called Kotlin which was mainly designed keeping android development in mind. This article will let its readers know about this awesome programming language along with a few tricks and tips and how it can be used in android development.
Kotlin: An Awesome Programming Language for Android Development
Android developers all over the world know that Java is a most preferred programming language when it comes to developing mobile apps for android platform. Although java is a reliable language, but sometimes java codes become complicated and difficult to manage which gives room for bugs (bugs make application malfunction). Then there was need for something more powerful and easy to use which can eliminate such problems occurring due to complications. This gave birth to Kotlin which has proved itself one of the best replacements of java. It’s not just an ordinary programming language; with the latest features added in its belt it is slowly becoming popular across the globe among all kind of developers.
Kotlin is a statically typed programming language which belongs to the family of java and C. Kotlin can be used for developing various projects from small tools to big applications. It runs on JVM (Java Virtual Machine) which means that any program written in kotlin can run on any platform where there is JVM installed i.e. Windows, Linux or Mac OS X platforms.
Below are some features that make Kotlin an awesome programming language among other existing languages:
Platform Independence:
Any kotlin program will run without an error across many platforms like Windows, Linux and Mac OS X because it’s compatible with Java Virtual Machine. Also, an application developed in Kotlin can be run on Android platform with the help of third party plugins.
High Productivity:
Kotlin is a highly productive programming language owing to its concise and clear syntax which decreases the chances of making errors. Any developer can write code faster in kotlin as compared to writing code in java or c or other languages because it uses type inference, smart casts and many other features that make work easier. Thus productivity goes high, resulting into lower labour cost and time consumption for Development Company hire android app developers. (Android Studio comes with built-in convertor for converting java file into Kotlin file.)
Memory Management:
This has been one of the major reasons behind java’s popularity. But in java heap memory is not reclaimed until program terminates which results into memory problems if many objects are created. So with kotlin, automatic memory management with help of garbage collection makes use of java codes easy and consequently let the code be less voluminous and easily manageable. To know more check RemoteDBA.com.
Compatibility:
Kotlin can be integrated with existing Java projects without any hassle. And vice versa; Kotlin is also capable of integrating with other JVM languages like Scala or Groovy. So Kotlin can be used in android app development throughout its app life cycle. Code once, run everywhere!
No Null Pointer Exceptions:
Kotlin eliminates null pointer exceptions by allowing considers null references as legal value. So it is mandatory to define variables’ values either as null or non-null. Below are some of the examples which depict nullability in kotlin:
Before Kotlin 1.1:
var name: String = null
// this will throw “NullPointerException” at runtime
If you don’t want any exceptions, you can explicitly enforce non-null type by appending ‘!’ symbol after variable type like below:
var name: String! = null
Kotlin 1.0 supports older java byte code versions starting with java 5 therefore let its users enjoy all features that java provides but with additional benefits of high productivity and memory management. It makes android development process more rapid and enjoyable for developers.
Conclusion:
Kotlin is the new java and it will be soon taking over java; we can say this confidently because of its enormous popularity among all kind of developers. From android development to web development, every sector which today uses java, in future will opt for kotlin programming language.