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by earenndil 3065 days ago
> In any case, a "not-java" language that can talk java is freakin amazing

I don't understand why this is such a big draw for people when literally any jvm language[1] has this feature. Languages like jython, ABCL, clojure, jruby, groovy, and perl6. Kotlin is certainly not unique in this regard.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JVM_languages
2 comments
SmirkingRevenge 3065 days ago
True. But I think Kotlin strikes a nice balance of seamless interoperability, convenience, and apparently few compromises. The java interop feels natural - far more natural than it does in most of those other languages you mention (I don't have experience with them all though) - but the language is more concise and convenient than java, even though its very similar. It also has static typing.

Some of the languages you mention come with serious compromises when used on the JVM, like Jython and Jruby - decent portions of their ecosystems are implemented in C - and hence won't work on the JVM.

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SmirkingRevenge 3064 days ago
Not sure what the downvote is for....

It's notable that projects like spark could have used Jython for its JVM/python interop, but chose py4j instead, consigning pyspark to some rather abysmal performance penalties under many conditions.

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earenndil 3063 days ago
> Not sure what the downvote is for....

I'm not sure either. Your comment seems perfectly legitemate to me...

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