Google recently announced that it has been 5 years of Kotlin, the official programming language supported for Android app development! Five years ago, at the 2017 Google I/O Keynote, it was announced that Kotlin will receive official support for building Android applications. The Android developer community was highly excited about this great announcement.

Since 2017, Google and Jetbrains have been collaborating around the development and enhancement of Kotlin. And, the two companies became the co-founders of the Kotlin Foundation.

In those initial I/O announcements, Kotlin was highlighted as an interoperable, mature, production-ready, and open-source language. It also has exceptional IDE support, as JetBrains creates both the language and its essential tooling.

Now, five years later since the first announcement, we, as a leading Android app development company India, are celebrating 5 years of Kotlin on Android.

In this blog post, we will discuss the most useful functions/classes/features that will make you fall in love with the Kotlin programming language. So, let’s explore them one by one.

Celebrating 5 Years of Kotlin with Useful Features/Functions/Classes/

Nowadays, opting for Kotlin app development services is a win-win situation for both businesses and Android app developers. Kotlin offers numerous helpful features that allow developers to build Android applications quickly and efficiently, ensuring quick time to market. Here is a list of some useful Kotlin features/functions/classes/ that help them deliver the final product on time.

Scoped Functions (let, apply, with, also, and run)

The Scope Functions are one of the most useful functions when you need to execute a huge set of operations on a single object. As a developer, you may find it more useful when you need to initialize an object with various members on it.

Filtering Functions (filter, all, any, none)

Developers often use these functions to filter out unnecessary data from a massive database. These functions are useful when you need to filter your lists with only the essential list items or check what type of data is present in your list.

Extension Functions

One of the favorite Kotlin features of Android app developers. It is very handy when you need to add features to an object without writing too many lines of boiler code all the time, or without inheriting the class to access its methods. For example, when you need to fetch text of an EditText, or when you need to show or hide data in your application dynamically everywhere.

Transformation Functions (map, flatten, flatMap)

Developers often use these functions in projects where they need to deal with the relational database, and extract and combine data from multiple datasets.

It is a very useful function when you need only some data from your data classes.

Null Safety

As a Java developer, you need to go through the pain of NullPointerException several times. We consider this as one of the best Kotlin features. The operators, ? and !!, have made it easier for developers to write clean code.

Moreover, the use of the safe call (?.) has proved to be helpful for developers. It helps them make calls from an object, however, the code needs to be bypassed automatically if that specific object is null. Hence, there’s no need for null checks or NullPointerException try-catch boiler codes.

Also, there is the Elvis operator (?:) that allows developers to write code for things to do if an object is null.

Coroutines

Coroutines completely transformed background processing. While this feature was not used much earlier, now it is being actively used in everyday coding.

Coroutines are useful when there’s a need to take the network calls to the background or make several concurrent network calls and merge the outcomes of both when completed. This feature helps in optimizing your app for network calls.

When

Using the When feature seems to be as tedious as using switch-case in Java. However, it is highly flexible as it allows developers to have multiple conditions checks, regardless of the type of objects or conditions. Developers at our Android app development company India usually find When very handy for almost all projects where there’s a need to redirect the flow of apps based on numerous conditions and object states.

Wrapping Up

When it comes to how Kotlin helps developers to write code concisely and optimally, the Kotlin features in this list are just to name a few. These top Kotlin features come in very handy in day-to-day Android app development. There are still numerous features that Android app developers may find useful.

So, next time you’re looking to hire Android app developers, make sure they are specialized in Kotlin to build robust, feature-rich, and intuitive Android apps.

We wish happy coding in Kotlin to all the Android developers. And, cheers to the glorious 5 years of Kotlin on Android and many more years to come!

FAQs

Q.1. Is Kotlin best for Android app development?

Ans. As Google has announced Kotlin as an official language for Android app developers. With its numerous useful features, Kotlin is proving to be a modern, pragmatic, intuitive, and the best programming language for Android apps.

Q.2. What apps can be built using Kotlin?

Ans. You can use Kotlin to build applications like Google, Pinterest, Tinder, Trello, Netflix, Zomato, Airbnb, etc.

Have More Questions? Feel Free to Ask Our Kotlin Experts.