Java and Kotlin, which is the preferred language for developing Android apps?

Java is the preferred language for many developers to create Android apps. But its leadership in the Android world is being challenged by a variety of new languages, Kotlin. Although Kotlin has only recently begun to get hot, a number of people believe that Kotlin will become Java's biggest competitor in the near future and will even pull Java down the mobile development throne. Below, we have detailed comparisons of Java and Kotlin to help you determine which language is best suited for your future mobile development projects.

JAVA

When it comes to Android app development, Java is a favorite of many developers – mainly because Android itself is written in Java. Developed by Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle), Java is an object-oriented programming language that ranks second on GitHub on the list of language activity. This is not surprising – it has been around for more than 20 of years, and its popularity seems to have only increased.

The benefits of Java

• Easy to learn and understand;
• Flexibility – You can run it in a browser window or in a virtual machine. This feature is handy when you reuse code and update software;
• For the development of cross-platform applications, is a good choice;
• Android relies on the java-android SDK to contain many standard Java libraries;
• Java has a large open-source ecosystem, partly because Google uses Java virtual machines (JVMS) for Android;
• Accelerating compilation in Gradle – we appreciate it when compiling large projects;
• Java applications are more compact – Java applications tend to occupy less space (even full simulations) compared to Kotlin, and a Kotlin application that contains complex computational processes can be slow to run on low-provisioned user devices (if the developer lacks experience);
• The top development speed –java has a faster build process than Kotlin.

The disadvantage of JAVA

• Some Java limitations can cause problems with the design of the Android API;
• As a lengthy language, Java needs to write more code, which leads to higher error rates and bug risks;
• Java performs slower and consumes a lot of memory than many other languages.

Usage Scenarios

Here are some examples of some of the best open source applications written using Java:

• Android-oss (Kickstarter official Android App)
• Newpipe (Youtube front-end for Android)
• WordPress Engineering (WordPress official Android App)?

KOTLIN

Kotlin is designed by a developer from JetBrains Corporation (Masterpiece: Integrated development Environment IntelliJ IDEA), which adds some modern functionality to Java, which is useful for mobile development. Kotlin is an open-source, statically typed language based on a Java virtual machine (JVM), but you can also compile it as JavaScript or Native to build code that can run on IOS. You just have to install the Kotlin plugin and let it configure your project.

If you know the ropes, learning Kotlin is not as difficult as it might seem. There's an extremely high-click Tutorial on liveedu- How to develop an Android App like Instagram with Kotlin. Presenter Asitaka is currently a system engineer at KDDI Corporation, a large telecommunications company in Japan, with years of industry experience. He is adept at using multiple languages, including Java and Kotlin, and therefore knows the pros and cons of both languages in Android development. Unlike the existing tutorials on the market, this set of tutorials will provide some Kotlin disappointing from an industry perspective. Try it!

Advantages of KOTLIN

• High popularity in Android development, but it is also used for back-end projects such as Spring 5;
• Switching from Java to Kotlin is simple – just install the Kotlin plugin, add it to the Gradle build file, and click "Convert".
• Includes smart extensions to help developers build clean APIs;
• Having null–null problems in their type systems is a common problem in Java development, because Android often uses NULL to indicate that a value does not exist, so Kotlin solves the problem by setting null directly in the type system;
• It is much more concise than Java, which means that the probability of the code being wrongly written is greatly reduced;
• Interoperable with Java – You can write new modules in Kotlin without worrying that they cannot work with existing Java code, Kotlin compatible with all Java libraries and frameworks, JVMs, and can be integrated with Gradle or Maven build systems;
• Developers can draw inspiration from the Anko library and more than 2000 Kotlin projects on Github;
• There is no cost to use Kotlin (except learning and practice).

The disadvantage of KOTLIN

• Since the Kotlin syntax is concise (both a benefit and a challenge), the learning curve will be very steep when the entire team is converted to Kotlin development.
• Compile slower than Java (although Kotlin is proven to defeat Java in some cases);
• The developer community is small, which means that learning resources are limited, and many questions are difficult to answer; Take a look at StackOverflow you probably know the situation – there are only about 8,000 issues with Kotlin tags, but the problem with Java tags is as high as 1.37 million;
• Experienced Kotlin developers are still rare, so finding mentors for your team can be tricky;
• Android Studio Auto-completion and compilation are often slower than pure Java projects.

Usage Scenarios

Here are two amazing apps written using Kotlin:

• Basecamp 3 Android app
• kotlinconf Schedule Application

Although Kotlin has many advantages that Java does not have, it still has some drawbacks. When trying out Kotlin, keep in mind that switching to a new language is not necessarily a good thing for developers who have found the tools and strategies that are right for them.

Conclusion

Whether you like to use Java or Kotlin, for the developer, on the basis of mastering a certain language, learning new language, have the rib to enhance personal competitiveness. Try to develop projects in these languages like the developers mentioned in the article. Practice is always the best discipline.

Java and Kotlin, which is the preferred language for developing Android apps?