Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Kotlin Foundation

kotlinlang.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 236 posts

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#41

Post by sorokod »

davnicwil wrote: post #22

A question for HN - I like Java a lot for the ‘http API talking to SQL database’ usecase, with my goto for that being dropwizard or spring boot. I’ve only ever looked at Kotlin code in blogposts, haven’t ever actually used it. I’m probably at least a few years behind on its feature set, but I am aware of all the great features Java has added in that timeframe, many no doubt inspired by Kotlin! Would you advise me to…

I work in a fintech company, most of our backend is in Kotlin with "legacy" functionality in Java.

Can't think of a single developer that would choose Java over Kotlin.

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#42

Post by ta988 »

hnrodey wrote: post #24

Any thoughts on if we are seeing the beginnings of a JetBrains acquisition from Google? There seem to be significant overlap between the JetBrains investments (people capital, intellectual property: IDE, language) and Google significantly using all of these things. edit: lol @ the down votes

It is highly unlikely (I hope I'm not wrong). The way Jetbrains is financed and managed, they don't need that and they don't have pressure from any venture capitalists to go anywhere near that. That would also really likely harm their reputation really badly (but I said that of github as well and it was not as bad as I feared, so don't believe everything/anything I say).

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#43

Post by yannoninator »

nolok wrote: post #23
yannoninator wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Google is one of the few companies that gives back to projects they use. Apple gives back to open source projects. Isn't Swift open source as well as LLVM and Webkit? Makes sense because they made them and a long time user of them.

I'm not sure why the victim complex about Apple in your comment, he said too few companies do it and that remains true whether or not Apple is in that group. In fact that conversation has nothing to do with Apple.

> I'm not sure why the victim complex about Apple in your comment, he said too few companies do it

Sure it's all good when companies fund projects they use, but that does not mean they should instantly get a board seat.

It makes sense why Jane Street sponsors OCaml, does not mean they instantly get a board seat. I don't see Jane Street sponsoring RISC-V and getting a board seat do I?

And it doesn't make sense to do so.

I find is suspicious for companies to join or create a foundation and get automatically propped up on the board, especially Google.

It's going to be much harder to remove them if your values are not aligned with theirs or you dare criticise them.

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#45

Post by voidfunc »

hnrodey wrote: post #24

Any thoughts on if we are seeing the beginnings of a JetBrains acquisition from Google? There seem to be significant overlap between the JetBrains investments (people capital, intellectual property: IDE, language) and Google significantly using all of these things. edit: lol @ the down votes

I hope not. I will cry when Google inevitably fucks the product up then closes them down.

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#46

Post by yannoninator »

ta988 wrote: post #17
yannoninator wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Google is one of the few companies that gives back to projects they use. Apple gives back to open source projects. Isn't Swift open source as well as LLVM and Webkit? Makes sense because they made them and a long time user of them.

I didn't say some other companies don't give back either If you compare the number of companies using a project and how many contribute, you will likely only need one hand to count the later...

I don't think this is a good thing in the long term, a conflict of interest can arise, then Google would pull out.

But then again, I guess I have no choice to accept this future we've put ourselves in.

At least I can as an individual give back to Kotlin, no wait...

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#47

Post by ta988 »

pjmlp wrote: post #28
The_rationalist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kotlin on the server is growing in popularity and ecosystem, just a week ago Netflix open sourced a new Graphql client. Also Pivotal (the company behind Spring boot) is investing a lot in Kotlin. To have tried many language on the server, Kotlin is a gift and has made me as a developer both more productive and happier! It truly is a state of the art language in ergonomics that everybody should give a try

Almost 10 years ago Pivotal was doing exactly the same with Groovy, Scala and Clojure, where are Spring Groovy/Scala/Clojure 10 years later?

I don't think any of these language efforts went anywhere near the support Kotlin now has in Spring. Doesn't mean it will not fail, but it is already further than any other..

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#48

Post by johnnycerberus »

davnicwil wrote: post #22

A question for HN - I like Java a lot for the ‘http API talking to SQL database’ usecase, with my goto for that being dropwizard or spring boot. I’ve only ever looked at Kotlin code in blogposts, haven’t ever actually used it. I’m probably at least a few years behind on its feature set, but I am aware of all the great features Java has added in that timeframe, many no doubt inspired by Kotlin! Would you advise me to…

Kotlin never appealed to backend developers (based on job ads, new open-source projects in the domain). Data pipelines, concurrency and streaming are becoming more and more part of what a backend dev should know. Instead, I've noticed that Scala is used in many systems where Java historically was less ergonomic for the task. Spark, Delta, Deequ, Scio, Finagle, Flink, Kafka, the Typelevel & ZIO ecosystems, Akka are some of the examples. Using Kotlin as a sugary interface to Spring Boot? Maybe for some that would be an incentive.

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#49

Post by BoorishBears »

ta988 wrote: post #32
davnicwil wrote: post #22

A question for HN - I like Java a lot for the ‘http API talking to SQL database’ usecase, with my goto for that being dropwizard or spring boot. I’ve only ever looked at Kotlin code in blogposts, haven’t ever actually used it. I’m probably at least a few years behind on its feature set, but I am aware of all the great features Java has added in that timeframe, many no doubt inspired by Kotlin! Would you advise me to…

You have to consider not only the language but what the team working on it will look like. It is still a bit hard to find server-side kotlin devs. On the other hand in my experience, Java devs pick up Kotlin really quickly (as do Python devs interestingly whereas they struggled with Java). I'm a huge proponent of Kotlin on the server side, less on frontend (JS) side. If you go with Kotlin and Spring Boot, Micronaut o…

Strictly imo, using Kotlin with Spring Boot defeats the purpose if you're trying to get away from traditional Java web frameworks (didn't think I needed to spell this out due to the next sentence, but HN gonna HN).

Kotlin is a chance to get away from the cruft and annotation magic of traditional Java.

I use Ktor and it's everything you need for a modern API (and can be deployed as a WAR if that's why you want Spring Boot)

Ktor's API that will be familiar to anyone who's used similar "neo-web frameworks" in other languages like Gin or Express, and it allows you to architecture your app in a way that makes sense to you (so if you need DI, you can bring in something like Koin, but you're never compelled to by the framework)

Re: The Kotlin Foundation

#50

Post by yannoninator »

blacktriangle wrote: post #16
yannoninator wrote: post #2

Rust, Python and now Kotlin. Just as PSF promoted Google to visionary sponsor, although I understand Jetbrains, but we see yet again our saviour Google on the board of yet another language, even after Rust formed its foundation. I guess I have no choice to accept this future we've put ourselves in.

I agree with your general Google paranoia, but in this case I'm okay with it since Google is easily the number 1 user of Kotlin thanks to its roll in making Android development infinitely more productive.

Jane Street is the No. 1 user of OCaml for a very long time, although sponsoring it, they don't have a board seat on the OCaml Foundation.

You don't need to provide a board seat to any company that tries to throw money at you, just because they use your language.

Just make them a sponsor, and there are examples of this.

Post reply on HN