When Google and JetBrains announced first-class support for Kotlin on Android last year, I could not wait to use it on our next project. Java is an OK language, but when you are used to Swift on iOS and C# on Xamarin, it's sometimes hard to go back to the limited Java that Android has to offer.

Within this past year, we successfully shipped two applications using Kotlin exclusively, with another one to follow soon. We decided to also use Kotlin for previous Java apps that we keep updating.

I took my chance when the Mobile Romandie Beer meetup was looking for speakers. I knew that I had to show others how easy and fun this language is.

It turned out great. We had people from various backgrounds: from people just curious about it, UX/UI designers, iOS developers, Java developers to people using Kotlin in production already.

You can find my slides below:

I would like to share a few links that helped me learn about Kotlin:

  • Kotlin Koans: a step by step tutorial that directly executes your code in the browser
  • Kotlin and Android: the official Android page to get started with Kotlin on Android
  • Android KTX: a useful library to help with Android development, released by Google

See you at the next meetup!