Kotlin – The Next Big Thing in Android App Development?

Powering billions of smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and televisions, Android is by far the world's most widely used mobile operating system. And, for years, Java has been the industry standard for Android app development, creating millions of powerful apps that we’re so accustomed to using. From the official Android app for WordPress to Telegram and from K-9 Mail to the official Android app for Wikipedia, all these have been created using Java.

Java remains the most widely used programming language, not just for Android application development, but for any form of enterprise software or application. This highly reliable, object-oriented and platform independent language has been popular since the 1990s and even in June 2018, it ranked number one in the TIOBE Index, a widely-accepted measure of popularity of programming languages. Java is used by an estimated 9 million developers and runs on 7 billion devices globally, says an article by Oracle. 

Enter Kotlin: The New Kid on the Block
Kotlin was announced in 2011 and launched at the Google IO conference in 2016. In 2017, Google announced Kotlin as an official language for Android app development and it was included in Android Studio 3.0, launched in May 2018.

But, what was the need for Kotlin for Android app development? Several languages have come and gone, without being able to shake Java from its top position. Why would an Android application development company choose Kotlin over Java, which has been proving its mettle for years? 

Well, the answer is that Android app developers shouldn’t choose between the two. It’s important that they know both these languages. This may lead you to believe that the Android app development has become more complex after the entry of Kotlin. This is far from the truth, as Android application development has benefited significantly from innovative ideas.

Innovation Drives Android App Development
To begin with, Android app developers no longer need to code everything from scratch. The advent of MADPs (Mobile Application Development Platforms) has relieved developers from the tedious task of writing endless lines of code and shifted the focus to ensuring enhanced user experience. An MADP is a powerful platform that offers pre-configured business modules that can be included in the app being created with a simple drag and drop approach. 

These reusable modules are pretested and completely bug free. They also incorporate industry best practices. Moreover, a good MADP would provide built-in connectors to legacy systems as well as easy integration with technology components. In this way, Android app development has progressed from being just about writing code to creating a highly customized mobility solution by looking at it more holistically with a focus on user experience.

Android app developers can then add in more features or customization, using Kotlin or Java or both. Before looking at how Kotlin compares with Java, it’s important to note the 100% interoperability between the two languages. It’s possible to easily use Java frameworks and libraries when writing code in Kotlin and Java developers can easily use any Kotlin framework. This also reduces the cost of Android app development as one can pick a Java project in the middle and start coding it further in Kotlin. This has eased the adoption of Kotlin.

What Kotlin Brings to the Table
Kotlin has been created with the core objective of making programming fun again. It provides statistical functionality that reduces the effort needed from Android app developers. 

Learning Experience
Kotlin has a much more programmer-friendly approach. It doesn’t require Android app developers to learn complex terminologies and methodologies, making it very easy to learn Kotlin.

Programming Experience
Gone are the days when even experienced developers would need cheat-sheets to successfully work on a language. In Kotlin, complex syntax and functions are encapsulated under the guise of easily-recognizable keywords, eliminating the need to memorize codes and their functionality.

Higher Order Functionality
Kotlin reduces the hassle of having to continuously deal with variables, with the implementation of higher order functions. Higher order functions are those that can accept other functions as parameters or return functions as results. This reduces the chances of garbage creation or data corruption.

Code Readability
The greatest challenge during the bug fixing stage is going back to the code and trying to identify the error. This process is made significantly easier by Kotlin, which lends much more readability to the source code.

Smart Cast
This is among the best capabilities of Kotlin. While in Java one would need to check type and then case an object, Kotlin’s smart casts are capable of handling redundant casts. One doesn’t need to cast within a statement if it’s already been checked with Kotlin’s ‘is’ operator. 

Kotlin has been developed by JetBrains, the company that designed IntelliJ, the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) on which Android Studio is based. So, Android app developers can benefit from Android Studio’s excellent support for Kotlin.