[pjmlp]

Kotlin adds Jetbrains only as IDE, additional build plugins, an ecosystem of Kotlin libraries for more idiomatic code, stack traces completly unrelated to Kotlin as JVM only understands Java, and it needs plenty of boilerplate to emulate co-routines and functions in JVM bytecodes.

Other than Android, there are no reasons for additional complexity in development tooling.

[Alupis]

Most of your points are not really valid if you understand Kotlin. It's not different than understanding Java really...

> Kotlin adds Jetbrains only as IDE

Not true, you can use any IDE you want. Of course IntelliJ is the "blessed" IDE, but really, Kotlin is just a bunch of libs, any IDE will work.

> additional build plugins

I don't see why this would matter. Any non-trivial build is going to use a bunch of plugins.

> an ecosystem of Kotlin libraries for more idiomatic code

Which are optional.

> stack traces completly unrelated to Kotlin as JVM only understands Java

I don't know what you mean. The stack traces are from bytecode, which Kotlin compiles to just like Java. The stacks are identical...

> needs plenty of boilerplate to emulate co-routines and functions in JVM bytecodes

You do not write the boilerplate though. That's the difference. Of course all higher level languages with High Order functions are going to suffer this same issue. It's abstractions all the way down..

You probably already use Kotlin and don't even know it. The popular okHttp library from Square is Kotlin - but you'd never know that if you just used it in your Java project.

[pjmlp]

> Not true, you can use any IDE you want. Of course IntelliJ is the "blessed" IDE, but really, Kotlin is just a bunch of libs, any IDE will work.

No I can't, because InteliJ is the only one that actually supports Kotlin.

Otherwise I would just be using Notepad++.

> I don't see why this would matter. Any non-trivial build is going to use a bunch of plugins.

It shows you don't work as build engineer.

> I don't know what you mean. The stack traces are from bytecode, which Kotlin compiles to just like Java. The stacks are identical...

Try to debug a Kotlin stacktrace with free functions and co-routines, and then try to tell the world it looks like what the Java compiler would generate.

> You probably already use Kotlin and don't even know it. The popular okHttp library from Square is Kotlin - but you'd never know that if you just used it in your Java project.

No I don't, because at my level libraries are validated and only internal repos are allowed in the CI/CD pipeline.

Also I no longer do native Android for work, other than mobile Web.

[Alupis]

If you do not understand an ecosystem, then you will believe the things you are saying. Nearly everything you claim is simply not true, and demonstrates a lack of understanding more than anything.

You can indeed use notepad++ to write Kotlin. Nothing is stopping you.

Kotlin is not limited to mobile development either.

[pjmlp]

Kotlin is not limited to mobile development, it only matters on Android thanks to Google's shenanigans, which is a different thing.

And even despite of it, they were forced to update Android Java to keep up with the JVM ecosystem.

> The next thing is also fairly straightforward: we expect Kotlin to drive the sales of IntelliJ IDEA. We’re working on a new language, but we do not plan to replace the entire ecosystem of libraries that have been built for the JVM. So you’re likely to keep using Spring and Hibernate, or other similar frameworks, in your projects built with Kotlin. And while the development tools for Kotlin itself are going to be free and open-source, the support for the enterprise development frameworks and tools will remain part of IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, the commercial version of the IDE. And of course the framework support will be fully integrated with Kotlin.

-- https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2011/08/why-jetbrains-need...

[andrekandre]

personally i think kotlin is fine, but when compared to modern java, i feel like i need to really see a quantum leap before i'd go all-in if i was running a business (to say nothing of the labor pool for kotlin vs java)

[Alupis]

> to say nothing of the labor pool for kotlin vs java

This is the biggest issue, in my opinion. Although, if you have a java developer that really likes the higher order features that are being added, Kotlin might be a very easy switch (after some basic syntax learning).

The nice part is everything you already know about JVM performance still applies within Kotlin. So you're not starting over from square-one like you might assume.