Kotlin was designed and developed by JetBrains, the company behind IntelliJ. It is a language that runs on the JVM which can target versions 6+ (including the Android platform). JetBrains wanted to use a statically typed language which can remove Java boilerplate code, provide modern functional paradigms, and had seamless two-way Java interoperability with their existing codebase. The JVM already had alternate languages like Groovy and Scala but neither fit the bill with their desired criteria, so they built Kotlin.
Kotlin syntax is similar to Scala and Swift but pulls in the best-of-breed features from other languages such as C# and Groovy. Kotlin took a pragmatic approach at features included in the language by only providing functionality that has been proven to be useful for developers. With this decision they implemented a subset of features of Scala with the intent that it will provide more maintainable code with an easier learning curve for developers looking for a "better Java".
JetBrains has a dedicated team of developers working on Kotlin with the codebase available on Github.
Join the Kotlin track
fun getGreeting(): String {
return "Hello, World!"
}
Exercism is fantastic in learning new languages but that is not the extent of it. If you are a "more experienced" programmer you may have encountered impostor syndrome: the idea you don't really know what you think you know. Exercism lets you solve problems and put them in the space of open feedback which is a tremendous learning opportunity to explore the depth of your own knowledge. Even if you have been programming in a language for awhile it is worth checking into Exercism to see where you stand with current implementation practices.
Once you join the Kotlin language track, you will receive support and feedback from our team of mentors. Here are the bios of a few of the mentors of this track.
These are a few of the 61 exercises on the Kotlin track. You can see all the exercises here.