Kotlin Characteristics
To know more in a programming language, of course we must know the characteristics of the language. Kotlin is a programming language that is concise, safe, pragmatic and focused on interoperability with the Java language. Kotlin runs smoothly with all existing Java libraries and frameworks. Of course Kotlin also has its own characteristics that make it preferred by many developers. Let's discuss some of these characteristics.
Modern and Concise
Kotlin is known for its concise modern language to write. Kotlin is able to cut lines of code into just a few lines. As we know, programmers spend a lot of time reading and writing code. When we are developing an application, the first thing we do is definitely read the code. Both the code from a documentation or any code that already exists in the project being worked on. Reading or writing code that is concise and easy to understand certainly be a benefit for a programmer.
The more concise a code, the faster it is for us to understand. Besides being concise, other factors such as naming functions will also be very influential. Kotlin has innate functions whose names are easy to remember. Even the choice of keywords that seem very simple. Let's consider the following comparison between Kotlin and Java:
"What was the first thing you saw when you saw the 2 (two) codes above?"
"Kotlin does not require semicolons or semicolons (;)".
That's right, that is one of the characteristics of Kotlin. Simple, but not infrequently the programmers are made dizzy because they forgot to add semicolons at the end of the code when coding in Java. The code above has the same purpose but is written in a different programming language. It is very clear that the code written with Kotlin is more concise and easier to understand, right? Well, that's not how much. In this academy you will see many code samples which show that Kotlin is a very concise language.
Kotlin is also equipped with several standard libraries such as the higher-order function, extension function, etc. which make writing the code more concise. Everything we will learn one by one at this academy.
Pragmatic
A programming language can be said to be pragmatic if it is able to solve problems practically. Kotlin was developed based on the problems that are often experienced by programmers at JetBrains. Without prejudice to suggestions and feedback from the community, in every release Kotlin always updates the features available for practical solutions for programmers.
In addition to being concise written, another thing that makes Kotlin pragmatic is support tools that are very helpful in the code writing process. JetBrains adds Kotlin support to IntelliJ IDEA along with plugins that are tailored to every feature in Kotlin.
Existing plugins are also able to guide programmers to learn the features of Kotlin. For example, we can convert Java code into Kotlin automatically just by copying and pasting the code in a Kotlin file. That way, we can indirectly learn what it looks like if a code in Java is written with Kotlin. Another example, IntelliJ IDEA is able to display warnings on a code whose writing is incorrect. Not only that, every warning is always accompanied by suggestions for improvement. Of course we will learn how a code should be written on Kotlin.
In the next module we will also learn more fully how the IDE's role in supporting Kotlin as a practical language.
