[blululu]

Totally valid point that swift is only useful for developing for Apple products, but this same criticism also applies more or less to Kotlin on Android. If you are dealing with iOS it is a joy compared to objective C. I would also add that it is a really nice language in general that is modern, expressive and general ergonomic.

[Illniyar]

Kotlin wasn't developed for Android. And can be run anywhere.

It was JetBrains pet project to fix archaic stuff in Java without making a Scala. It was designed from the get go for a wide base (as wide as java).

I'm not sure how it became Android's main target, but I doubt it was the original purpose.

[jszymborski]

Further to that point, Kotlin mainly targets the JVM (which can run pretty much everywhere), but also can be compiled to JavaScript, LLVM, and a bunch of other targets.

Honestly the only times I've evaluated Kotlin for personal projects was bc of that flexibility.

[singularity2001]

recently kotlin can even be used to compile to native and wasm, but gradle makes it almost less usable than swift

[pjmlp]

With various levels of implementation quality, Kotlin/Native had to be rebooted, on JS it hardly offers anything better than TypeScript, on the JVM it is mostly used by Android shops anyway.

[balder1991]

It was adopted on Android quite fast after Jetbrains made the integration in Android Studio almost flawless, partly because back then the Android runtime was stuck on the Java 6 syntax plus some syntax sugar that the IDE provided to mimic lambda functions.

It helped a lot that I think Jetbrains took advantage of all they could to make development in Kotlin very smooth, I remember back then people joked how Kotlin worked so flawlessly on Android Studio almost like it was the main language while on Xcode Swift was slow, the highlight would stop working constantly, refactoring was not supported, often indexing the project would hang forever etc.

[deaddodo]

> Kotlin wasn't developed for Android. And can be run anywhere.

I agree and would go so far as to say that Dart is a better comparison to Swift than Kotlin is.

[radley]

I think everyone jumped from Java to Kotlin due to Oracle suing Google over Java in Android. It also provided a huge opportunity to be more deliberate since Android was maturing.

[nazgulsenpai]

Oracle sued Google over the Android's implementation of Java's API. Kotlin still uses those APIs as it is compiled to Java bytecode on Android.

[pjmlp]

That is an urban myth.

If that was the case, they would have adopted Dart instead of keeping an high dependency on the Java ecosystem for Android.

Android Studio, Gradle, Kotlin compiler, the libraries that Android depends on from Maven Central, all Java.

[pjmlp]

Because Google and JetBrains are in bed together in what concerns Android development tooling.

Try to use Kotlin without the Android ecosystem, it is just syntax sugar for the JVM.

[philwelch]

Java is just syntax sugar for the JVM too, it's just that Kotlin is a better one.

[chii]

> this same criticism also applies more or less to Kotlin on Android.

i think kotlin has more use outside compared to swift.

But a language has to start somewhere, so i wouldn't hold it against swift. It's a fairly well done language regardless, and nothing apple specific about it tbh (which are all just libraries).

[philwelch]

I thought Kotlin was pretty widely used as a Java alternative on the backend

[rahmeero]

An example is smart contracts on the Corda blockchain, which is programmed in Kotlin. It may be me, but I have seen more Kotlin outside of Android than on it.

[fnord77]

Kotlin seems kinds of pointless with the features in newer Java versions

[d3nj4l]

No amount of lipstick on the java pig will make it as ergonomic to use by default as kotlin.

[scns]

Harsh but have to agree.

[pjmlp]

It is enough that it is the Java Virtual Machine, not Kotlin Virtual Machine.

Hence why Kotlin only really matters on Android.

[doyouevensunbro]

Just looking at Java’s upcoming string interpolation makes me so happy I moved to Kotlin years ago.

https://openjdk.org/jeps/430

[fbdab103]

Would Java had advanced without Kotlin on its doorstep?

[fnord77]

Lots of languages are converging on features and idioms. Scala and Haskell have had an influence on New Java too.

[pjmlp]

Yes, because Kotlin hardly matters in regards to the JVM.

[stevefan1999]

At least I got to integrate Spring Boot well with Kotlin. Same goes for writing Minecraft mods.