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by grizzles 359 days ago
I use kotlin at work every day and I'm suprised it (and particular Kotlin/Compose Multiplatform) are not more popular. It's a true alternative to javascript that lets you share native ui code across web,ios,android,desktop and more (eg. watchOS).
3 comments

I know this is a bit nitpicky but - if you have to compile Kotlin into a WASD binary, then use JavaScript to load it, is that really ‘native?’

You can just run JavaScript right out of the url field or the console in the browser, no compilation or server required - that’s what I would think of as ‘native.’

To me, it feels like Kotlin for the backend isn't really all that popular in the US from what I read on HN, but here in Europe there are a lot of companies (big and small) using it. Maybe it's the geographic proximity (JetBrains being a Czech company).
Do you mean a 'Java' alternative?
all the cross-platform alternatives are either very low level (C++) or Javascript, so I'm guessing they actually meant Javascript (Electron, React Native, etc)?