Kotlin: A New Hope in a Java 6 Wasteland

Re:Kotlin: A New Hope in a Java 6 Wasteland by e12e on Monday September 28, 2015 @08:56PM (#10294170)

I just wish there was an officially supported way to get set up with a kotlin-first Android project from the command line. So far the best documentation I've seen is:

http://kotlinlang.org/docs/tutorials/kotlin-android.html

Which a) requires one use the IDE. Maybe not surprising from a company that sells IDEs, but it's not my dream environment. b) Even then, one is asked to manually "replace java kode with kotlin" (with help of a wizard). Couldn't we just get a script/function that'll set up a project targeting the desired Android API level?

It'd be nice if kotlin provided a script/command-line utility that basically allowed the equivalent of:

  android create project -a Main -p hello \
   -k com.example.app
   -t android-15 -g -v 1.3.1
  cd hello/

  # Note that even android sdk is broken,
  # one needs to manually change:
  #
  #  runProguard false
  #
  # to
  #
  #   minifyEnabled false
  #
  # in build.gradle

  gradle build
  # Start emulator (android avd...)
  # possibly (re)start adb server
  #
  adb install ./build/outputs/apk/hello-debug.apk

I'm still figuring out the Android/java command-line/build workflow, but I suppose one should be able to drop the kotlin.jar somewhere, and add something to build.gradle. I've yet to find any documentation how how to do that (official or otherwise).

Am I really the only one that wants a predictable, scriptable environment in which I can both initiate development from scaffolding supported by upstream, and have a reasonable grasp over the entire build process?

I mean, we all want to automate this for Continous Integration, right?

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Re:Kotlin: A New Hope in a Java 6 Wasteland by kensuke155 on Monday September 28, 2015 @09:30PM (#10294257)

Here's the reference for building for Android with Gradle: http://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/using-gradle.html#targe...

And other build tools: http://kotlinlang.org/docs/tutorials/build-tools.html

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Re:Kotlin: A New Hope in a Java 6 Wasteland by e12e on Monday September 28, 2015 @10:58PM (#10294475)

Thank you for the reminder, I'd looked at that, and forgot while figuring out why the "android sdk" skeleton didn't work (see note above about manually patching the build-file).

At least now I should be able to get a proper java skeleton, fix the build, add support for kotlin. Only missing piece would be a supported "pure" kotlin Android project/skeleton generator.

At some point I also looked at the Android example at the bottom of that page: https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin-examples/tree/master/gra... -- that is also IDE centric, and hasn't been touched in a while. Which doesn't leave me very confident that it's been tested with Android 5.1 and/or 6 alpha.

I suppose I'll just have to push out a "howistart"-article if/when I figure out a process that is both easy and repeatable, and hope someone will help with filing bugs as it inevitably drifts towards being outdated as the android landscape changes :-)

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