What is Kotlin Programming Language?

Kotlin has emerged as a popular programming language for native Android development. Its characteristics, advantages, and utilities are as follows:

A Brief Introduction

Kotlin is a general-purpose programming language. It’s statically typed with type inference. Kotlin is free and open-source. This modern programming language supports both object-oriented programming and functional programming.

JetBrains, the company that created IntelliJ IDEA, the popular IDE, developed Kotlin in 2010. The company first launched Kotlin in 2011. Kotlin is an open-source project since 2012.

The creators of Kotlin designed it to be fully interoperable with Java. Kotlin initially targeted JVM (Java Virtual Machine) and Android. You can now use it for Windows, Linux, iOS, macOS, watchOS, and other operating systems too.

Advantages

Kotlin offers the following advantages:

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• By supporting both object-oriented programming (OOP) and functional programming, Kotlin offers many new possibilities for developers.
• Kotlin offers powerful features like higher-order functions, anonymous functions, lambdas, closures, etc.
• You can use Java and Kotlin in the same project since Kotlin is fully interoperable with Java.
• Kotlin is easy to learn. Especially, Java programmers can quickly learn it. This will help to expand the Kotlin developers’ pool.
• Kotlin offers excellent performance. It has no runtime overhead.
• You can easily understand code written in Kotlin.
• Kotlin helps developers to prevent common programming errors. This reduces application security vulnerabilities. An example is an efficient way in which Kotlin handles nulls.
• With Kotlin, you can achieve more by writing fewer lines of code. This improves the productivity of your team.
• You can maintain a Kotlin app easily due to a smaller codebase and cleaner code.
• Kotlin is a highly reliable language. Many rounds of development and extensive testing have made it a reliable language.
• Although it targeted JVM and Android initially, you can now develop Kotlin apps for many platforms. That includes Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and watchOS. You can develop web apps using Kotlin too. That makes it a truly cross-platform language.
• Kotlin has a bright future. Google supports its development. A growing and vibrant developers’ community contribute to the growth of Kotlin.

How popular is Kotlin?

Kotlin is a relatively new language, however, its popularity is rising. The TIOBE Index indicates that Kotlin is the 29^th most popular language.

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey report states that Kotlin is 15^th among popular programming languages. This report also indicates that Kotlin is the 14^th most-loved language.

When and where should you use Kotlin?

You can use Kotlin for native Android development. While many native Android development projects use Java, Google is increasingly preferring Kotlin. You can also use Kotlin for the following:

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• Back-end web development;
• Front-end web development with Kotlin for JavaScript;
• Data science projects for number-crunching, detecting trends, and making predictions;
• Cross-platform app development.

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