Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS

Looks great! My biggest concern and one of the reasons I'm not using Swift or C++ for a cross platform library is that most of the dependencies you (at least I need) need don't support those languages (Auth0, Firebase, Crashlytics etc...). So you end up writing more complex code to make that also work. If Kotlin native can bring those types of libraries to be supported it will be huge IMO.

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS

#5

Post by abukros » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 3:28 PM UTC

jaegerpicker wrote: post #4

Looks great! My biggest concern and one of the reasons I'm not using Swift or C++ for a cross platform library is that most of the dependencies you (at least I need) need don't support those languages (Auth0, Firebase, Crashlytics etc...). So you end up writing more complex code to make that also work. If Kotlin native can bring those types of libraries to be supported it will be huge IMO.

Yes. That’s a problem for MP too. But maybe you can select a proper slice of the application that can work without these libs and implement that code as a shared MP lib.

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS

#6

Post by theWheez » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

So, so excited for this. I would love nothing more than to be able to create Model and ViewModel code a domain specific cross platform SDK, and have a View implementation on a platform by platform basis for android, iOS, and web. Possible? I sure hope so!

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS

#7

Post by tlarkworthy » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

jaegerpicker wrote: post #4

Looks great! My biggest concern and one of the reasons I'm not using Swift or C++ for a cross platform library is that most of the dependencies you (at least I need) need don't support those languages (Auth0, Firebase, Crashlytics etc...). So you end up writing more complex code to make that also work. If Kotlin native can bring those types of libraries to be supported it will be huge IMO.

Some of the firebase apis have c++ implementations: https://firebase.google.com/docs/cpp/setup

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS

#8

Post by oropolo » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

In essence, JetBrains has caught up to where Xamarin was prior to the announcement of Xamarin.Forms: the ability from one solution to have separate iOS and Android UI applications with a business logic library shared between the two, all written in C# or F# (the two languages supported by the Mono compiler). The main difference is that one of the vendors actually supports the language in question (Kotlin) as a first-class citizen.

And going the other way, there's been noise for a couple years that Android apps could be written in Swift, achieving the same effect in reverse.

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS

#9

Post by the_trapper » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 4:33 PM UTC

oropolo wrote: post #8

In essence, JetBrains has caught up to where Xamarin was prior to the announcement of Xamarin.Forms: the ability from one solution to have separate iOS and Android UI applications with a business logic library shared between the two, all written in C# or F# (the two languages supported by the Mono compiler). The main difference is that one of the vendors actually supports the language in question (Kotlin) as a first-…

> The main difference is that one of the vendors actually supports the language in question (Kotlin) as a first-class citizen.

How is this different for Xamarin? C# has first class support on Windows.

Re: Kotlin Multiplatform for Android and iOS

#10

Post by oropolo » Fri, Sep 14, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

the_trapper wrote: post #9

oropolo wrote: post #8

In essence, JetBrains has caught up to where Xamarin was prior to the announcement of Xamarin.Forms: the ability from one solution to have separate iOS and Android UI applications with a business logic library shared between the two, all written in C# or F# (the two languages supported by the Mono compiler). The main difference is that one of the vendors actually supports the language in question (Kotlin) as a first-…

> The main difference is that one of the vendors actually supports the language in question (Kotlin) as a first-class citizen. How is this different for Xamarin? C# has first class support on Windows.

Windows isn't a mobile platform. They tried 2.5 times and have given up. In mobile it's iOS and Android, and neither Apple nor Google recognize C# as a first-class language. If you can write a compiler that emits code that LLVM can compile to ARM binary with Xcode or package your MSIL with a micro .NET VM on Android, then more power to you but Apple and Google aren't going to help you if you get stuck.