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Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

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Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#31

Post by malkia »

novok wrote: post #15
cageface wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started building a Flutter app recently and so far I’ve been quite impressed. The ecosystem is surprisingly mature and dev velocity has been good even though I’m learning a new language and framework at the same time. On a purely technological level I’d take this over React Native any day and I have a lot of React experience. I think Google has a winner on their hands here if they don’t give up on it.

Big worry for me has been a history of ignoring ios bugs for years, causing things like long startup times

You are probably thinking of the shader compilation step that has to happen - https://docs.flutter.dev/perf/shader - and the long term solution (from the page) is https://github.com/flutter/flutter/wiki/Impeller

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#33

Post by colanderman »

MarkMarine wrote: post #26
lewisjoe wrote: post #16

I'm puzzled why Kotlin isn't getting enough attention on HN, at least as much as Rust or Zig. Kotlin is indeed popular in it's specific domain (Android & Java). But the company is keen to position it as "write once run anywhere" space with a strong focus on multiplatform development. 1. The build system provides platform specific bindings for free (huge plus compared to the hassle of writing the core in C/C++ and the…

I think modern Java has stolen a lot of Kotlin’s thunder. The differences between the languages shrink with each Java release, and server side Kotlin isn’t evangelized by its main cheerleader, google. It’s a GC language, so rust/zig are not good comps. Go, Java, Scala, Server side JS/Node, or python. These are the comps. Personally, I’ve written a number of non-trivial, server side applications in Kotlin. The extra c…

Don't forget C#/F#. Microsoft's been leaning hard into cross-platform with MAUI.

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#34

Post by your_challenger »

brabel wrote: post #29
mrtksn wrote: post #21

I really don't get the appeal of "multiplatform" rediscoveries. We already have the Multiplatform stack that is mature and truly Multiplatform: HTML+JS+CSS If you need something close to the metal, you have C and others that are multiplatform. If you want to do something slightly platform specific you loose the multiplatform claim instantly anyway. IMHO, if you are going to do something that is not an UI to an API or…

With KMP is that you can write all your logic in one language, then reuse that in all platforms, including iOS, Android and Web. That's quite valuable if it works well. I've been trying just that at work with mixed results... The lack of a multiplatform stdlib for pure Kotlin is very tough if you need to do a lot of crypto, various serialization formats etc. so you end up writing lots of multiplatform APIs that are i…

Yeah, the library ecosystem for KMM is lacking. Also the build system used to be a headache. I haven't tried KMM recently but it was so unintuitive a year back

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#35

Post by your_challenger »

tschellenbach wrote: post #32

iOS devs don't want to use Kotlin multiplatform, I really doubt this will gain any traction.

Yeah, but Android devs may use KMM. This is an Android dev focused product. It might grow to be something people choose first (like choosing flutter), but today it is a Android first ecosystem.

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#36

Post by brabel »

bobajeff wrote: post #9

I've mostly stayed away from mobile development because Android projects look too complicated to get started on even NDK projects. The value of learning those APIs to me isn't even close to what you get by learning Web APIs. So if I invested my time to learning it I don't feel Is get as much out of it. Maybe something like Kotlin/Compose Multiplatform can help. But, really if they made Android APIs (or React-native/F…

Try Flutter. It's amazing how easy it is to get started with a desktop app in any OS, and then just run it on mobile (or emulators which are easy to install via Android Studio or VS Code) when you want to without having to deal with almost any of the crap iOS and Android developers need to... Flutter generates all manifests and what not, and the docs show exactly what to do to sign artifacts and stuff that requires you to very briefly have to open XCode to set up those things.

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#37

Post by your_challenger »

sqoopd wrote: post #4

With significant advancements in AI technologies, including solutions like ChatGPT/Bard, I am considering this issue of multi-platform from a standpoint of AI. If an application has been developed for a major platform, adapting the same applications for other platforms could potentially be managed by Co-Pilot. For instance, I can already create applications with the assistance of ChatGPT.

reddit.com/r/lostredditors/

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#38

Post by frizlab »

dickersnoodle wrote: post #22
lewisjoe wrote: post #16

I'm puzzled why Kotlin isn't getting enough attention on HN, at least as much as Rust or Zig. Kotlin is indeed popular in it's specific domain (Android & Java). But the company is keen to position it as "write once run anywhere" space with a strong focus on multiplatform development. 1. The build system provides platform specific bindings for free (huge plus compared to the hassle of writing the core in C/C++ and the…

iOS dev here. What you're missing is that a ton of native-code developers (me included) aren't interested in adopting an abstraction layer that has to be tweaked to approximate the look and feel of the native OS UI layer when we could just built it natively to begin with and save all that effort. We've seen PhoneGap/Cordova, we've seen React Native and we'll keep seeing money thrown away on pretending that there aren…

This. It’s exactly the same for me (also iOS dev, and I do Swift on the server too).

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#39

Post by akmarinov »

bad_user wrote: post #17
clawoo wrote: post #5

I don't see what the difference is between using React Native vs Flutter vs Compose Multiplatform. You will still be basically putting all of your eggs in a corp's basket. What if Jetbrains decides overnight "you know what? this whole Compose Multiplatform is taking up too many of our resources, we're going to retire it at the end of this quarter"?

It depends on how popular the library gets before the plug gets pulled. If it's popular, it can survive because it's Open Source, and it actually has an advantage over actual proprietary platforms.

Nah, once the big corporation backing it is out, it’s a slow agonizing death

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS Apps

#40

Post by robertlagrant »

mrtksn wrote: post #21

I really don't get the appeal of "multiplatform" rediscoveries. We already have the Multiplatform stack that is mature and truly Multiplatform: HTML+JS+CSS If you need something close to the metal, you have C and others that are multiplatform. If you want to do something slightly platform specific you loose the multiplatform claim instantly anyway. IMHO, if you are going to do something that is not an UI to an API or…

Just being able to make client code for an HTTP API that can be installed into Javascript, Android, and iOS projects with identical logic is a pretty big win.
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