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Kotlin Is Better

steve-yegge.blogspot.com

121–130 of 229 posts

Re: Kotlin Is Better

#121
post #22
post #19

Other language built around IDE support: Delphi. The compiler was built with callbacks to provide code completion; it runs in process, as a DLL, as part of the IDE. No accident that Hejlsberg also design C#, and innovated further with TypeScript's language server. He wrote the original Turbo Pascal (IDE + Compiler in the same executable) in assembler, so he's been building IDE + language combos all his life.

Oh Delphi.. every time I fight with CSS and think about how easy making GUI apps used to be almost 20(sic!) years ago, I feel like something went wrong. Mandatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4

Haven't looked at Delphi since last century, but it seems it's still alive, and can produce iOS and Android (and all the desktops) programs. No idea how well though...

Re: Kotlin Is Better

#122
Just wanted to point out that Kotlin is not from Russia. It's from Prague, Czech Republic. Almost the furthest west you can go and still be Slavic.

Maybe the founders of Jetbrains are Russian. Not sure.

edit: aha Kotlin is in fact developed in Russia. From Russia with love!

Re: Kotlin Is Better

#124
A few people have said that IntelliJ is slow.

Why is this so, if Java is not inherently slow?

Sure JetBrains are some of the smartest developers around and yet their IDE is still slow.

I can't help but feel that Java is slow and problems with performance in something like IntelliJ do nothing to dispel that feeling.

Re: Kotlin Is Better

#125
Is there reason to choose Kotlin if you don't already live in the Java world?

Put another way, is it a language that makes living in the Java environment less painful, and thus only of value to people who continue to need to live in the Java world?

Why would someone who has never programmed in the Java ecosystem use Kotlin?

I'm surely ignorant and prejudiced but when I read this I thought "Hey why not try Kotlin?", then I thought of Java and images came up in my head of thousands and thousands of files being installed, and the vast, lumbering Java engine cranking slowly and chugging and masses of XML configuration up the wazoo for everything and I shuddered and thought "I'll stick with JavaScript, where the pain of configuration is merely excruciating, as opposed to the pain of Java configuration which is similar to bowing before throne of the Java king of ninth level of hell awaiting punishment for a lifetime of sin.".

Re: Kotlin Is Better

#127
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work on a large Scala team. We use microservices so my regular compile times are somewhere between 4s and 20s. I rarely have to do a full rebuild. IDE support is bad, that's a good criticism but a good chunk of us don't use IDEs, and instead write it like a dynamic language. Live inside the REPL, copy paste back and fourth. As for 'subsets' everyone uses, I find this advantageous. Our team strongly encourages a pur…

Scala IDE support is bad? What IDE are you using? I find IDE support in IDEA almost on par with that of Java. It is very fast, has accurate error highlighting, very good smart autocomplete, understands advanced Scala features, supports most refactoring I care of, but most importantly works reliably.

I've used IntelliJ for Scala some time and did encounter way more IDE bugs than in Java. I think JetBrains did a good job, but Scala is not engineered towards tool support. That is one big flaw of the language.

Kotlin is much more pagmatic (not only) in this regard, what is no surprise coming from a tool vendor.

Re: Kotlin Is Better

#129

Having all parameters to be read-only is a deal breaker for me.

There's got to be a good reason why though?

Honestly, I can't think of anything that is not bullshit. Having to declare a new variable for each parameter that you need to manipulate makes the code a lot messier.

Re: Kotlin Is Better

#130

the title has been made politically correct - the actual title is "Why Kotlin Is Better Than Whatever Dumb Language You're Using". I wonder if that was intentional editorial oversight.

It's been changed. Lol at that.
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