Kotlin - Empowering the Custom Mobile App Development

1. Kotlin - Empowering The Custom Mobile App Development Ever since Android came into occurrence, Java has been the official language for developing android apps. Doubtlessly, the programing language has worked well for most of the developers, and with without any doubt, it has proved to be a robust one for android apps development. Since the inception of programing language 'Kotlin,' the community has been introduced to the next level of mobile app development. Kotlin - The Programming Language Kotlin, named after an island in Petersburg, Russia is a statically-typed programming language developed by JetBrains. Although it came into existence in 2011, it made heads turn when it was acknowledged as Google’s official language during Google I/O 2017 and got included in Android Studio 3.0. With Google itself becoming Kotlin-oriented, significant developers are moving towards its adoption, as most of the Java applications are getting revised in Kotlin, resulting in the future of building Android apps. Given a thought, earlier Swift ensured the end of Objective C language in the antiquity, and today it the ending is somewhat revolving around Java, as Kotlin is all set to out Java from the Android app development ecosystem. Hence, in the world of Android app development, this language is creating all the waves. The evolution of Kotlin commenced in Russia 2011 when JetBrains - parent company was looking for a replacement to Java to implement in their products, but due to some inherent limitations, Java imposed on their developers. Out of the several available Java Virtual Machine (JVM) languages, they found Scala to be the most suitable to their requirement of static compilation. But when they tried using Scala, it ended up being quite slow in terms of compilation speed in addition to lacking a good Integrated Development Environment (IDE) support. Hence they decided to write their language known as Kotlin.

2. The programming language runs on JVM (Java Virtual Machine), and its most significant advantage is that it can also be compiled to JavaScript source code or by using the LLVM compiler infrastructure. As the arrival of Kotlin gives coders an alternative to the traditionally used Java language for Android mobile application development, Rigel Networks as a growing mobile app development company unleashes the power of this revolutionary technology. Design Challenges Faced by Kotlin In the development of the language, Kotlin did face its design challenges and the very first challenge faced by the Kotlin programmers was the nullability in the type system. With too much of hassle in figuring the right solutions, Kotlin team came up with platform types after several iterations. Benefits of Adopting Kotlin in Android application As Kotlin is the officially supported programming language for writing Android apps, most of the organizations choose to adopt it for their Android app development requirements. However, for ages, Java has proved to be a reasonably useful language for most of the developers. With the commence of Kotlin, these programmers need to know and understand about the several high impacting benefits of adopting Kotlin before they can leap. Nevertheless, transitioning to Kotlin is one of the best decisions an organization can make for their business. Let's have a look at a few top benefits of adopting Kotlin. Brevity offered by Kotlin One of the primary reasons why developers prefer Kotlin over Java is the brevity that Kotlin offers, and in comparison, Java seems quite tedious. Brevity ensures that there are minor errors in code and gives a much faster rate of production. An Open Source Since 2012, JetBrains declared Kotlin to be an open-source project. As an open source language, a developer can expect high-quality development, all the while getting great support from the Kotlin Slack team. Mature language with a great IDE support Before the final release of Kotlin, it had undergone several stages of alpha and beta, which means even before it released officially, as it was already getting used in several projects. It was aimed to be practical in usage with proven features from other programming languages and world-class IDE support. The IDE plugin works smoothly in the case of Kotlin and allows several of Java’s popular features. These are top three benefits of Kotlin which will somehow make up your mind to adopt Kotlin for Android applications. We later discuss more benefits and understand why businesses are drifting towards Kotlin.