Re:Android’s Commitment to Kotlin
by izacus on Saturday December 07, 2019 @04:59AM
(#21729417)
> At this point, I feel no language can compensate for the platform's out-of-date java libraries. I think Google has its priorities wrong: first should be recent java, second should be kotlin.
Kotlin works on all Android versions. Java updates don't. That doesn't mean Google shouldn't update the JVM on Android, it does however mean that any update to Kotlin immediately translates to wins across whole ecosystem, including people supporting Androids back to versions like 4.x, while Java updates don't.
It's a significantly better tradeoff - similarly like using TypeScript and polyfills gives you more powerful language on the web without restricting you only to newest browsers.
Kotlin works on all Android versions. Java updates don't. That doesn't mean Google shouldn't update the JVM on Android, it does however mean that any update to Kotlin immediately translates to wins across whole ecosystem, including people supporting Androids back to versions like 4.x, while Java updates don't.
It's a significantly better tradeoff - similarly like using TypeScript and polyfills gives you more powerful language on the web without restricting you only to newest browsers.