Kotlin. It sucks. Time to address the elephant in the room.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Borne out of some legal mumbo-jumbo, Kotlin is a pointless endeavour for actual programmers since it fails to indeed replace Java. After all this time since Kotlin inception that nobody asked for, the most basic of examples fail miserably, yet java examples on stackexchange (of all places) work and are mostly quite well documented.

Isn't it time for Google to abandon this pointless pursuit like most of the other Google vaperwares?

What do you think?

[AndyBeez]

Sucks yes, but have you seen the salaries paid on planet Kotlin? Ask from AUS$200K/yr*#. It's Java for big enterprises with bigger pockets. You think Gargoil is going to kill one of it's cash cows golden elephants?

* Throw in AWS or Rust and that's doubled. Double again for FinTech or Crypto. As for also having "Docker experience", that's like catching a magic token in Mario Kart. So EE's earn how much little in comparison?

# You have to be no older than 35 years.

[brucehoult]

What does Google have to do with it?

Kotlin is from JetBrains, located in Tula, a city of 500k people 200km south of Moscow. Or at least they were when they drove up to give a presentation to us at Samsung in 2016. I think they've moved to Skolkovo or SPB now.

Android supports using Kotlin, but doesn't require it if you prefer Java.

[AndyBeez]

Kotlin is Google's preferred and supported language for Android developers. So why hire packages are so stupid high is beyond me? Hire a teenager still at school. But Kotlin spans much of the mobile development space, including Apple watch Really, it's still Java under the hood,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotlin_(programming_language)#cite_note-auto-7
+ I suspect Google just wants to own everything, including the open source field - before MS and Amazon grab everything else with cloud and mobile scope. Why spend money developing your own Java libraries, when you can 'associate' yourself with a Github project It's still worth checking out the salaries though, especially if you're a recent graduate with a STEM subject degree.

Personally, I did the hello android app and moved towards iPhone stuff; the Android ecosphere is too unpredictable for long term product development and support: Change it today, change it tomorrow. Which might explain the stupid money corporates are willing to spend on skills, after they've fallen head first into the rabbit hole of Android integration.

[Ed.Kloonk]

What does Google have to do with it?

Kotlin is from JetBrains, located in Tula, a city of 500k people 200km south of Moscow. Or at least they were when they drove up to give a presentation to us at Samsung in 2016. I think they've moved to Skolkovo or SPB now.

Android supports using Kotlin, but doesn't require it if you prefer Java.

That is what I'm wondering. Thank you.

Every recent tute, every video, they all say that you should begin coding Android in Kotlin because Google said in 2018? that Kotiln is their preferred language.

I last poked around with Android in 2016 and was able to get some basic stuff running and could leverage some more complicated tasks. For disclosure, I don't prefer Java, I prefer C. 

But going beyond "hello-android", the Android studio/Kotlin eco-system leaves you high and dry. I am disappoint.

[Marco]

Dart/flutter seems more the direction Google is pushing now. Just saw they couldn't actually get their latest flutter rendering tech working on Android, but are shipping it for iOS ... what a bloody embarrassment. Almost certainly caused by not being able to rely on even decent up to date OpenGL drivers, let alone Vulkan.

The whole Android licensing system is so uncompetitive. They should have done it much closer to the Chromebook system years ago, keep much tighter control over the hardware and the software.

Too late now though, Apple is going to own all.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Dart/flutter seems more the direction Google is pushing now. Just saw they couldn't actually get their latest flutter rendering tech working on Android, but are shipping it for iOS ... what a bloody embarrassment. Almost certainly caused by not being able to rely on even decent up to date OpenGL drivers, let alone Vulkan.

The whole Android licensing system is so uncompetitive. They should have done it much closer to the Chromebook system years ago, keep much tighter control over the hardware and the software.

Too late now though, Apple is going to own all.

So I spent a couple of hours on flutter/dart. TL/DR I didn't get anywhere with it. 

Bottom line, after so much downloading, pomp and ceremony, flutter doctor complained that cmd line tools not installed and Android licence status unknown. Pffftt.

But the big piss-off for me is that it claims it can't find the GTK dev libs. FFS. 

Stop saying you support Linux when, really, you only rely on the Ubuntu people to make your stuff work. 

All that said, I've since watched a few y/t vids on Kotlin. Some things are making sense when you realize it's only the wheel that's being re-invented.

 

[Marco]

It's a bit silly they use snap and then still rely on non snap development packages.

Either use something which can install purely on snap on a barebones Linux, or use a real package manager.

[Ed.Kloonk]

It's a bit silly they use snap and then still rely on non snap development packages.

Either use something which can install purely on snap on a barebones Linux, or use a real package manager.

I didn't use Snap. And wont.

I went though numerous iterations trying to satisfy it's 'dependences'. cmake, ninja etc. At the end of the day, you realize that while it -could- install under a boiler-plate instance of *buntu at some frozen point in time, the reality is the code you invest time in creating can't and wont survive in the real world.

[tggzzz]

Some things are making sense when you realize it's only the wheel that's being re-invented.

The approved phrase is "X being triumphally reinvented" Especially prevalent w.r.t. software products/frameworks/languages.

It often occurs with a lack of knowledge as to why X was superseded in the first place. Cue Fukuyama quote.

[SiliconWizard]

I don't know much about Kotlin. Not something I'd be very interested in investigating.
But Java sucks as well anyway.
Had a quick look at Dart, and I fail to see what it brings to the table.

The software world has become like a self-sustaining monster that feeds off itself anyway.

[Marco]

You use dart to use flutter, you use flutter to not have to use html/css/js for a cross platform app which can run in the browser too.

[Ed.Kloonk]

You use dart to use flutter, you use flutter to not have to use html/css/js for a cross platform app which can run in the browser too.

Whatever you do do, don't use C.

 

 

[Marco]

Don't think there is a decent GUI library which works in webassembly and standalone for C, for C++ there is QT though.

[Rizzo]

I can technically qualify as a "pro" (Android dev) and Kotlin was absolutely worth learning (I started with Java, and followed guidance from some experienced developers to pivot). Kotlin works well with spring boot/ktor on the backend as well as being great for Android. Once you learn a language and a framework pretty well, picking up others becomes easier over time, so Kotlin is as good a starting point as any (IMHO).


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