Kotlin

Kotlin is a modern programming language developed by JetBrains that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and has become Google's preferred language for Android development. It is fully interoperable with Java, meaning existing Java libraries and frameworks work seamlessly with Kotlin code. The language was designed to fix Java's verbosity and safety issues, null safety is built into the type system, data classes eliminate boilerplate, coroutines provide elegant asynchronous programming, and extension functions let you add methods to existing classes without inheritance. For custom web application development, Kotlin matters when a client needs a native Android app that integrates deeply with Google services, Android-specific hardware features, or requires maximum performance on Android devices. Kotlin Multiplatform also enables sharing business logic between Android, iOS, web, and server applications from a single codebase.

1 The Problem It Solved

Kotlin was created by a team at JetBrains led by Andrey Breslav, starting development in 2010. JetBrains, the company behind IntelliJ IDEA, wanted a language that could improve developer productivity over Java while maintaining full JVM compatibility. The name comes from Kotlin Island, located near Saint Petersburg, Russia, where JetBrains had its original office. The language was publicly announced in 2011, and version 1.0 was released in February 2016. The transformative moment came in May 2017, when Google announced Kotlin as an officially supported language for Android at Google I/O. By 2019, Google declared Kotlin the preferred language for Android development, effectively making it the default choice for new Android projects.

2 What Sets It Apart

Before settling on the name Kotlin, the JetBrains team considered several alternatives. The naming convention of choosing an island was inspired by Java, which was also named after an island (Java, Indonesia). Kotlin Island has a real naval history, it hosts the Russian naval base of Kronstadt. Another lesser-known fact: JetBrains built Kotlin primarily to improve their own developer tools. Their IntelliJ platform was written in Java, and they wanted a more productive language for their own codebase. This "dogfooding" approach meant Kotlin was battle-tested in a massive production codebase before it ever reached external developers.

Visit: kotlinlang.org