101–110 of 239 posts
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The problem isn't typing, but reading. Maybe other people's brains work differently than mine, but I'm sure I will be slightly slowed down by this.
When it comes to reading it is very clear in the IDE. val variables look normal (since immutability is encourage), var variables are underlined. You get used to it very quickly
I'm happy to be dependent on my IDE.
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It's obviously very strongly influenced by Scala, to the point of adopting a number of its syntax decisions that are considered questionable (procedure syntax, infix notation, "=" function definitions). I will echo what the others have said; it's not what I would choose, but in practice it's never been a problem when I'm writing Scala.
Why are Scala's "=" function definitions questionable? It makes absolute sense since a function should return a value.
val array = new Array[String](10)
array.update(7, "hello")
array(7) = "hello" // simply calls out to update> Declaring values is done using either "var" or "val". "val" declarations cannot be reassigned, whereas "vars" can. I wonder why they decided on these very mistakable names. Why not const/constant/cons/whatever else just as long it's distinguishable from each other?
In my experience as someone whose been writing scala for a couple of years (which also uses val/var), it has 100% never been confusing or a problem.
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What kind of sugar are you looking for? I'd like to have first-class comprehensions in any language I use, but having decent map/filter/reduce|fold implementations is good enough for the most part. (1..100).map({ it + 10 }) Doesn't seem so bad.
Mutable hashmap/associative array/whatever literals like: var map = {"a": 6, "b": 12} [Whatever list type is most common/idiomatic in Kotlin] literals like: var list = [1, 2, 3] etc. Plus list/map comprehensions like Python or Haskell, as you mentioned. Not a big deal or anything. It's only a little bit of extra typing. And the syntax sugar they do add is definitely a massive step-up over Java. I know it'd be hard to…
var map = hashMapOf("a" to 6, "b" to 12)
var list = listOf(1, 2, 3)
It looks like there's been a very conscious effort to strike a midpoint between Java's familiar clunkiness and Scala's hipster experimental side. I think that's a good thing, you end up with a language that feels pragmatic and powerfully practical.
everyone everywhere hates android dev work. so they think that it must be java. no, java sucks, but kotlin sucks just the same. the problem is the android ecosystem as a whole. the ever changing apis. etc.
wasting time on java vs kotlin is absurd with so many other real problems.
In terms of why we'd want to, there is this note here: https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/comparison-to-java.htm... Other factors to consider are tools support, how often interoprability with java libraries causes problems. Would be nice to hear from someone who has used it a bit about what the state of these is?
In general, after bouncing between various desktop, mobile, and web-based technologies, I've come to the conclusion that any binding/event-based GUI system needs some sort of async-await or futures support to be truly workable. Otherwise, performing background tasks without locking up the UI involves way too much boilerplate and tends to blow up the architectural complexity of the application.
the whole kotlin debate is just a misguided stab at solving the pain that is programming for android. everyone everywhere hates android dev work. so they think that it must be java. no, java sucks, but kotlin sucks just the same. the problem is the android ecosystem as a whole. the ever changing apis. etc. wasting time on java vs kotlin is absurd with so many other real problems.
Honestly I could never really get into Kotlin. I like the features of the language - and would love to have many of them in plain ol' Java - but the syntax just feels wrong to me and I've not been able to get over it.
I find it a huge improvement over Java, but I wish it would have more syntax sugar for lists/arrays/maps like Swift and dynamic languages do. The mix of "hip" programming language constructs with unchanged Java verbosity feels weird to me. But if I were making an Android app, I'd definitely try to do it with Kotlin first.
I like kotlin a lot, but suddenly there are a lot of articles in the front page about it. Kotlin isn't more cool because Google announced yesterday it is going to use it in Android. Kotlin is the same good language it was 2 days ago! (rant over) If you want to learn kotlin go to the official docs and tutorial, they are as good as the language: http://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/ And you don't need to install anythi…