Should you start with Kotlin as a beginner coder?
Intro
Hello and Happy new year fellows. This is my first post of the year 2022 so with that I got this question that should I recommend learning Kotlin language to beginner coders, this is what I’ll try to answer in this post (Spoiler alert my answer is yes but keep reading for knowing why?).
What is Kotlin?
In brief, it is an awesome programming language for writing programs 🙂. Want to know more about Kotlin then I would recommend a wonderful story by Mehmet Sezer
Reason 1: Features and Simplicity
- Less and concise code
- Support for extensions — ability to extend a class with new functionality without having to inherit from the class
- Functional coding supported — nested functions, pass a function as lambda in the function parameter
- Support for Coroutines —simpler multi-threading
- And loads more of features which you can find here
Fair Pavitra, but it seems that most of this features are already available in other languages then why should I learn Kotlin? — Wait let me first list down all the reasons then you can decide 🙂
Reason 2: Support for Native apps (using KMM)
- So Kotlin is the official language for native Android app development.
- Along with that, you can also develop for multiple platforms (Android, iOS, and Javascript) using Kotlin’s newest KMM (Kotlin mobile multiplatform)
- You can learn about it more in the below story (self-promotion OP 😛)
Reason 3: Support for server side coding (using Ktor)
- To develop server side applications or services, Kotlin provides Ktor framework
- Ktor can also be used in client side for easier API calls
- Alternatively if you don’t want to learn a new framework then you can also use Spring framework as Kotlin is interop with Java
Reason 4: Support for writing declarative UI (using Jetpack compose)
- With the support of Kotlin we can write declarative UI using Jetpack Compose framework
- Jetpack Compose can be used for creating UI for Desktop, Web as well as Mobile (Android)
- Also you can use Compose Multiplatform for sharing extensive UI code across Desktop, Web and Android
Woah 😮, this is so much, What about the learning curve?
Well if you have little or any prior experience with Java, Javascript or even Swift then its going to be lot smoother than you are thinking.
I would say beginner coders with no coding experience will also find it quite easy learn and master.
Conclusion
As we have seen, with Kotlin you can easily jump into and quickly get started on any platform, which can be a great advantage if you are a beginner and help you explore different platforms and help you decide the right platform for your awesome app 👍.
If you have learned something from this story then don’t forget to CLAP and if you have question or suggestion then leave it in the comment.
