21–30 of 89 posts
Better type safety means less crashes.
I've been very happy writing Kotlin backend code for the last fourteen months or so. Definitely excited. It's an awesome JVM language.
what backend framework are you using ? i have been pretty interested in trying out spring boot 5 or vertx
I think the only thing I find really annoying about Vert.x is the lack of built-in JSON -> object binding. I've written some cheap glue code to fix that though.
I've been very happy writing Kotlin backend code for the last fourteen months or so. Definitely excited. It's an awesome JVM language.
I'm investigating Kotlin. Do you have references, blogs etc to suggest ?
I follow /r/kotlin as well. Advanced idioms and stuff I've just picked up looking through GitHub repositories.
What I really like about Kotlin is just about everything "works" as it should or you can usually write a Google search that will reference Stack Overflow. I don't have to dig much to find answers and in the absolute worst case I can just drop back to Java and do it the classic way.
Kotlin for me is Java made right. It's not complex, it has awesome interoperability with Java, it uses JDK, not reinventing its own wheels and it has everything I need from modern language. But it seems that Jetbrains has its own vision for Kotlin being a completely independent language. So while it works for me right now, I'm not sure if it will work in the future. They are going native and it'll bring a lot of chan…
We've seen 1/10 the memory usage on golang vs java with similar performance, so properly executed there is a big opportunity in the native space.
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what backend framework are you using ? i have been pretty interested in trying out spring boot 5 or vertx
Vert.x though recently I switched back to Dropwizard for a prototype... it works mostly fine, but I think I've kinda fallen in love with Vert.x I think the only thing I find really annoying about Vert.x is the lack of built-in JSON -> object binding. I've written some cheap glue code to fix that though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vert.x though recently I switched back to Dropwizard for a prototype... it works mostly fine, but I think I've kinda fallen in love with Vert.x I think the only thing I find really annoying about Vert.x is the lack of built-in JSON -> object binding. I've written some cheap glue code to fix that though.
are you using Jackson or gson to do this ? I have heard lots of conflicting advice on this... so am curious on what you are doing
I think Gson is more common on the Android side of things where Kotlin has (I believe) a lot more popularity than on the backend.
Kotlin is not just for android apps. Kotlin is getting first class support on next generation Spring web framework with functional programming support - https://speakerdeck.com/sdeleuze/functional-web-applications... it's almost done with first class support for vert.x which is a high-performance reactive webframework https://github.com/vert-x3/vertx-kotlin-common The reactor project (erlang for the jvm?) is building…
There are many languages for backends and tons of libraries. But there is hardly any substitute of Java in Android(if you don't consider JS solving every problem in this planet). If JetBrains only concentrate on building an ecosystem for android, it can become "the real Swift for android".
I built a dummy app for android in Kotlin. It was great. The same thing I tried in Scala(it didn't go very well).
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Even with Kotlin Native in mind, we have no plans to break Kotlin's backwards compatibility guarantees, and we do plan to support the new JVM features such as value types. So if Kotlin works well as a Java enhancer for you today, it will only work better in that role in the future.
Perhaps the bigger issue here is fragmentation. Here you are, a young language with a lot of promise whose primary appeal is Java interop and whose target market is enterprise Java and already you're dividing your efforts to offer something which your target market will likely have zero interest in. Why not wait until you have real market share in the job market and only then worry about native? Kotlin is a very nich…
1) It's hard for a new language to get traction. Lower odds that a new startup! They see so many ruby and python shops adding Go to their stack and want to compete in that space. Kotlin's biggest market seems to be android devs and competing with Go puts them in the datacenter.
2) IDEA's IDEs have a better value proposition to devs working with statically typed languages. Appealing to current Java devs builds the Kotlin ecosystem, but appealing to dynamic language devs expands IDEA's customer base more.
Kotlin for me is Java made right. It's not complex, it has awesome interoperability with Java, it uses JDK, not reinventing its own wheels and it has everything I need from modern language. But it seems that Jetbrains has its own vision for Kotlin being a completely independent language. So while it works for me right now, I'm not sure if it will work in the future. They are going native and it'll bring a lot of chan…
Kotlin is close to the ideal language for me because it is just Java done right. If they want to go native and can do it without impairing any of the JVM usability, I guess go for it. But I don't see the point behind it. I don't develop native apps so maybe I just don't know enough, but it seems like Go and Rust have already satisfied the desire for modern natively compiled languages.
I feel the same way about the Kotlin compiling to Javascript ability. I write both the frontend and backend of web apps so I theoretically should be the exact target market for Kotlin to Javascript but I have no interest in it. ES6 and/or Typescript work better there and have an entire ecosystem around them. And even if they didn't work for me I'd prefer Dart which targets the frontend first instead of being an extra like Kotlin Javascript.
My advice to Kotlin: Stick with what you do best. Kotlin is on the exact right track on the JVM but I think all these different modes are going to make people more cautious about adopting it in any of them because they'll worry it's a jack of all trades but master of none.