Beginning Android Development – Your First Kotlin Android App – raywenderlich.com

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Kotlin is a statically typed programming language that runs on the Java virtual machine and also can be compiled to JavaScript source code or use the LLVM compiler infrastructure. Its primary development is from a team of JetBrains programmers based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.[2] While the syntax is not compatible with Java, Kotlin is designed to interoperate with Java code and is reliant on Java code from the existing Java Class Library, such as the collections framework. Kotlin uses aggressive type inference to determine the type of values and expressions for which type has been left unstated. This reduces language verbosity relative to Java, which demands often entirely redundant type specifications.

As of Android Studio 3.0 (October 2017) Kotlin is a fully supported programming language by Google on the Android Operating System[3], and is directly included in the Android Studio 3.0 IDE package as an alternative to the standard Java compiler. The Android Kotlin compiler lets the user choose between targeting Java 6- or Java 8-compatible bytecode.

Philosophy

Development lead Andrey Breslav has said that Kotlin is designed to be an industrial-strength object-oriented language, and a “better language” than Java, but still be fully interoperable with Java code, allowing companies to make a gradual migration from Java to Kotlin.

Semicolons are optional as a statement terminator; in most cases a newline is sufficient for the compiler to deduce that the statement has ended.

Kotlin variable declarations and parameter lists have the data type come after the variable name (and with a colon separator), similar to Pascal.

Variables in Kotlin can be immutable, declared with the val keyword or mutable, declared with the var keyword.

Class members are public by default, and the classes themselves are sealed by default meaning that creating a derive class is disabled without requiring explicit keywords in the base class to enable it.

In addition to the classes and methods (called member functions in Kotlin) of object-oriented programming, Kotlin also supports procedural programming with the use of functions.

About Android

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open source software and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition, Google has further developed Android TV for televisions, Android Auto for cars, and Android Wear for wrist watches, each with a specialized user interface. Variants of Android are also used on game consoles, digital cameras, PCs and other electronics.

Initially developed by Android Inc., which Google bought in 2005, Android was unveiled in 2007, with the first commercial Android device launched in September 2008. The operating system has since gone through multiple major releases, with the current version being 8.1 “Oreo”, released in December 2017.

Android has been the best-selling OS worldwide on smartphones since 2011 and on tablets since 2013. As of May 2017, it has over two billion monthly active users, the largest installed base of any operating system, and as of 2017, the Google Play store features over 3.5 million apps.