Can Kotlin overtake Java for Android development? New report says yes

The first edition of the new Realm Report is here — this quarterly publication aims to report on what’s happening with mobile development right now, and offer their predictions of where things are going in the future.

The Realm Report is available here. 

Android’s love story with Kotlin began in May when the Android team announced at Google I/O that they are adding support for Kotlin, thus making “Android development faster and more fun,” Mike Cleron, Director of the Android Platform wrote in a blog post announcing the good news.

Why Kotlin?

Kotlin plays well with the Java programming language, Cleron explained. “The effortless interoperation between the two languages has been a large part of Kotlin’s appeal.” Furthermore, this programming language will be “very familiar to anyone who has used the Java programming language.”

Cleron also said that developers love Kotlin and we couldn’t agree more. According to the results of our annual survey, Kotlin occupies the sixth position. However, since the first two positions are occupied by Java 9 and Java 6, 7 and 8 respectively, one could say that this young programming language is technically in top 5 most beloved (and used) programming languages.

JAXenter annual survey: Programming languages trends 2017

Realm Report: “Kotlin is about to change the whole Android ecosystem”

Kotlin is not the only new language that has taken the mobile development world by storm — when it comes to iOS app development, many believe that Swift is the way to go, mainly because it is simple to use and offers a feature-packed goodie bag. Don’t take my word for it though; iOS developers prefer this language to Objective-C and that’s a fact.

Swift might be considered the crown jewel of iOS development but things are not that clear in the Android world yet. However, “with Java use peaking, Kotlin is on the path to winning the Android platform,” the Realm Report shows.

Source: Realm Report

SEE ALSO: 10 reasons why you should switch to Kotlin for programming Android apps

Say your goodbyes to Java (on Android)

Java (on Android) is dying.

Realm Report

According to the report, 20 percent of apps built with Java before Google I/O (so before Kotlin became a first-class language for Android development) are currently being built in Kotlin. They even stated that this young programming language (it’s only six years old!) could “change how Java is used on the server, too. In short, Android developers without Kotlin skills are at risk of being seen as dinosaurs very soon.”

The report concluded that “Kotlin will overtake Java in December 2018.” The statement is even more impressive if we take into consideration the fact that support for Kotlin was added this year. 

If you need more reasons to ditch Java (on Android) and give Kotlin a go, you should read this article.