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Kotlin is the latest cross programming language which is cross platform, general purpose programming language, which is statically typed with type reference. It is fully compatible with JAVA and is supported by Google for Android mobile development. The origin of Kotlin is a very interesting story.
Origin of Kotlin
Kotlin word comes from a place called Kotlin island, near St Petersburg, Russia. It was developed by Jet Brains led by Dmitry Jemerov. The initial version of the software Kotlin v1.0 was released on 15 Feb, 2016. The next version, Kotlin v2.0, was released on 28 November, 2017. The last version, Kotlin v3.0, was released on 29 October, 2018. The main features why Kotlin is so popular among would be programmers are stated as follows:
Distinguishing features of Kotlin
1) It is an open source software.
The first primary advantage of Kotlin, is that it is an open source language. It was designed by Jetbrains, who have also designed IntelliJ IDE. It is very simple, in a sense, it can be easily converted from JAVA within a single click.
2) Great interoperability
Kotlin has a big advantage over others is that it has fantastic interoperability with JAVA. It runs on JAVA and is bound to use JAVA tools and libraries. It is designed to provide backward compatibility for JAVA versions 6 and 7.
3) Kotlin compiles to JAVA Script or JVM bytecode.
Kotlin compiles to JVM bytecode or JAVA Script. If you are using garbage collected runtime, you will certainly like this program.
4) Kotlin has data classes.
One of the major advantages of Kotlin , is the less amount of code in the data classes. It will save you lots of typing and coding effort.
5) Parameters are default by nature.
In Kotlin, the arguments are passed by default name instead of index. It is very advantageous, when there is a function with lots of optional parameters.
6) There is no runtime overhead in Kotlin.
There is no garbage in Kotlin. Its functions are inline only which become inline code.
7) There is no null in Kotlin.
There is no code in Kotlin which returns null exception, unlike JAVA. This is a big advantage of Kotlin over JAVA.
Seeing the advantages of Kotlin, it has found large scale acceptance, in all strata of the society. Now, let us examine the various apps, where it has been readily deployed.
Applications of Kotlin
1) Pinterest
The most widespread application of Kotlin is in the app Pinterest. It is a photo sharing service and a uses mobile application, which discovers information using images, GIF and videos. They have migrated to Kotlin away from JAVA in their android app.
2) Trello
Another very common app is Trello, where Kotlin is used to write the code in the android app. It is a well known project application, owned by Atlassian. It is a web based list application.
3) Coursera
Coursera is one of the most popular companies in the field of education. They provide online courses authored by universities like Yale and Stanford. For all their android app programming, Kotlin is to be used.
4) Evernote
Evernote is one of the most popular apps created for taking notes, task lists, organizing and archiving. In this app, users are allowed to create notes like formatted text, web pages, voice memos, photographs. These notes have file attachments. They are sorted into tagged, notebooks, annotated, exported and searched. Kotlin is integrated into Android client.
5) Basecamp3
Basecamp3 is an app that manages small business. The android app is written entirely in Kotlin, stating its big advantages.
6) Twidere for Twitter
Twidere is a new app which has been designed for Twitter, which is open source, cent per cent material design Twitter browser, increasing Twitter experience. It is written entirely in Kotlin.
7) Shadowsocks
Shadowsocks is an open source encrypted project, which is used in China to escape internet censorship. Socks5 is an internet protocol which exchanges network packets between server and client through proxy server. The coding of the android app is done in Kotlin.
8) Simple Calendar
Simple calendar is one of the fully open source calendar with no advertisments. Simple Calendar is one of the set of apps called Simple Mobile Tools. Open source code is written in Kotlin.
Future of Kotlin
After observing the growing popularity of Kotlin, it can be safely said that, Kotlin is the future of android app programming. Google has declared it to be the programming language of the future and capable of running on Java virtual machine.
