Kotlin And 100 Days Of Code Challenge

So, what is Kotlin, and why is it worth learning?

Kotlin

Apparently, Kotlin has grown into many areas and has been around for 8+ years now. I thought it was a language only used in Android development, but it is used for at least the following see official uses here

• Mobile Cross-Platform
• Native
• Data Science
• Server Side
• Web Development
• Android

That is quite the list of uses, and I want in on that!

I have had an itch to begin learning Kotlin, even before realizing it has such a large breadth of uses. My desire is to venture into Android development, so, for the next while I will be blogging about what I learn in Kotlin, and what I learn during my 100DaysOfCode Challenge. See next section :)

The 100DaysOfCode Challenge

While reading many different posts on Twitter, I kept coming across this #100DaysOfCode hashtag... So I finally looked it up, and decided to join in! You can check it out on the official site

The simple point of it is, you spend 1 hour a day learning some new development or code related thing you're interested in. Then, you report on your progress publicly on Twitter, by tweeting out the hashtag. (no wonder I kept seeing it all over the place...) It has a great community from what I've seen.

In addition to tweeting about my progress in the challenge, I'll be regularly blogging about my experience with the Language.

Kotlin Spotlights (Challenge Days 1 - 5)

I am really liking what Kotlin provides so far. It's claim to fame is that it is a very concise and expressive language that makes developers happy. I honestly have to say, so far, I agree with them! Check out this snippet as an example of how concise the language is.

Concise Switch Statement With When

In JavaScript you can do something like this, but it feels unwieldy with all the returns, and declaring each case... Or all the if statements...

// JavaScript Code
function conciseSwitchStatement(value) {
    // Either this...
    switch (true) {
        case (value === 0):
            return "zero"
        case (value < 51):
            return "a good amount"
        case (value <= 100):
            return "plenty of value"
        default:
            return "over achiever"
    }

    // Or a series of if else statements
    if ( value === 0 ) return 0
    else if ( value > 0 && value < 51 ) return "a good amount"
    else if ( value >= 51 && value <= 100 ) return "plenty of value"
    else return "over achiever"
}

But in Kotlin, this is what you can do!

// Kotlin Code
fun conciseSwitchStatement(value: Int): String {
    return when(value) {
        0 -> "zero"
        in 1..50 -> "a good amount"
        in 51..100 -> "plenty of value"
        else -> "over achiever"
    }
}

It reads really nicely, and feels very clean. You don't have to use keywords like break or case, and also notice, you return a value from the when statement. If you want to, you can assign that to a variable.

val result = when (value) {
    0 -> "zero"
    1..100 -> "a real value"
}

This is just one example of the concise nature of Kotlin. It favors less code, and easy use, and I will continue to share more as I learn and experiment with it.