The release of Kotlin 1.1 brings many welcome improvements to the language: val properties with custom getters can take full advantage of type inference and inlining; they introduced the T.also { it -> } extension method, which is to T.apply {} what T.let { it -> } is to T.run {}; and data classes can inherit from interfaces and base classes, just to name a few. But the two biggest changes are full support for JavaScript as a compilation target (possibly a huge deal, if you’re a full stack dev and reluctantly work with JavaScript), and coroutines(!!!).
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All posts for the month March, 2017
If you’re like me, you’ve grudgingly put up with Java for years, for the sake of getting things done on Android. With Kotlin picking up steam as a viable, modern alternative, things are looking much better for all of us. Whenever possible, I do all my Android work in Kotlin.
To reap the fullest benefits of Kotlin, though, we can’t just fall back on old habits; it’s very easy to write code in a familiar Java style. In fact, allowing this was a design goal of Kotlin, to make it easier to transition between languages. But the real power and beauty of Kotlin is where it differs from Java, sometimes drastically. Let’s take a look at some examples of code patterns I’ve run across in production code, and different ways we can improve upon them.
