Posts Tagged ‘Keynote’
[KotlinConf2023] KotlinConf’23 Keynote: The Future of Kotlin is Bright and Multiplatform
KotlinConf’23 kicked off with an energizing keynote, marking a much-anticipated return to an in-person format in Amsterdam. Hosted by Hadi Hariri of JetBrains, the session brought together key figures from both JetBrains and Google, including Roman Elizarov, Svetlana Isakova, Egor Tolstoy, and Grace Kloba (VP Engineering for Android Developer Experience at Google), to share exciting updates and future directions for the Kotlin language and its ecosystem. The conference also featured a global reach with KotlinConf Global events in 41 countries. The main announcements from the keynote are also available in a blog post on the Kotlin blog.
The keynote celebrated Kotlin’s impressive growth, with statistics highlighting its widespread adoption, particularly in Android development where it’s the most popular language, used in over 95% of the top 1000 Android apps. A major focus was the upcoming Kotlin 2.0, centered around the new K2 compiler, which promises significant performance improvements, stability, and a foundation for future language evolution. The K2 compiler is nearing completion and is set to be released as Kotlin 2.0. The IntelliJ IDEA plugin will also adopt the K2 frontend, aligning with IntelliJ releases.
The Evolution of Kotlin: K2 Compiler and Language Features
The K2 compiler was a central theme of the keynote, marking a major milestone for Kotlin. This new compiler front-end, which also powers the IDE, is designed to be faster, more stable, and enable the development of new language features and tooling capabilities more rapidly. Kotlin 2.0, built on K2, is expected to bring these benefits to all Kotlin developers, enhancing both compiler performance and IDE responsiveness.
Looking beyond Kotlin 2.0, the speakers provided a glimpse into potential future language features that are under consideration. These included:
* Static Extensions: Allowing extension functions to be resolved statically, potentially improving performance and clarity.
* Collection Literals: Introducing a more concise syntax for creating collections, like using square brackets for lists, with efficient implementations.
* Name-Based Destructuring: Offering a more flexible way to destructure objects based on property names rather than just position.
* Context Receivers: A powerful feature for providing contextual information to functions in a more implicit and structured manner. This feature, however, is being approached carefully to ensure it aligns well with Kotlin’s principles.
* Explicit Fields: Providing more control over backing fields for properties.
The team emphasized a careful approach to evolving the language, ensuring new features are well-designed and maintainable. Compiler plugins were also highlighted as an avenue for extending Kotlin’s capabilities.
Kotlin in the Ecosystem: Google’s Investment and Multiplatform Growth
Grace Kloba from Google took the stage to reiterate Google’s strong commitment to Kotlin. She shared insights into Google’s investments in the Kotlin ecosystem, including the development of Kotlin Symbol Processing (KSP) and the continued focus on making Kotlin the default choice for Android development. Google officially supported Kotlin for Android development by early 2017. The Kotlin DSL is now the default for Gradle build scripts in Android Studio, enhancing developer experience with features like semantic highlighting and code completion. Google also actively contributes to the Kotlin Foundation and encourages the community to participate through programs like the Kotlin Foundation Grants Program, which focuses on supporting multiplatform libraries and frameworks.
Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) was another major highlight, showcasing its growing maturity and adoption. The vision for KMP is to allow developers to share code across various platforms—Android, iOS, desktop, web, and server-side—while retaining the ability to write platform-specific code when needed. The keynote celebrated the increasing number of multiplatform libraries and tools, including KMM Bridge, that simplify KMP development. The future of KMP looks bright, with efforts to further improve the developer experience and expand its capabilities.
Compose Multiplatform and Emerging Technologies
The keynote also showcased the advancements in Compose Multiplatform, JetBrains’ declarative UI framework for building cross-platform user interfaces. A significant announcement was the alpha release of Compose Multiplatform for iOS, enabling developers to write their UI once in Kotlin and deploy it on both Android and iOS, and even desktop and web. This opens up new possibilities for code sharing and faster development cycles for mobile applications.
Finally, the team touched upon Kotlin’s expansion into emerging technologies like WebAssembly (Wasm). JetBrains is developing a new compiler backend for Kotlin targeting WebAssembly with its garbage collection proposal, aiming for high-performance Kotlin code in the browser. Experiments with running Compose applications in the browser using WebAssembly were also mentioned, hinting at a future where Kotlin could offer a unified development experience across an even wider range of platforms. The keynote concluded with an invitation for the community to dive deeper into these topics during the conference and to continue contributing to Kotlin’s vibrant ecosystem.
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[KotlinConf2019] KotlinConf 2019 Keynote: People, Ideas, and Software in the Kotlin Ecosystem with Andrey Breslav
The opening keynote of KotlinConf 2019, delivered by Andrey Breslav, the then Lead Language Designer for Kotlin at JetBrains, set an inspiring tone for the conference. Addressing a packed room of 1,700 attendees, with many more watching online, Andrey articulated a vision of Kotlin that extends beyond mere syntax and features, emphasizing it as an ecosystem built upon three pillars: people, ideas, and software. His presentation underscored the collaborative spirit that fuels Kotlin’s growth and the continuous feedback loop that shapes its evolution. The official Kotlin language website, central to this ecosystem, is kotlinlang.org.
Andrey Breslav began by reflecting on Kotlin’s journey and its burgeoning community. He highlighted that the success and adoption of Kotlin are deeply intertwined with the people who use it, contribute to it, and advocate for it. This “people-first” perspective was a recurring theme, as he stressed that Kotlin is designed to bring developers together, fostering a common way of working and shared values. The vibrant interactions at KotlinConf itself, with developers from around the world sharing experiences and knowledge, served as a living testament to this community-centric approach.
The Power of Ideas and Continuous Improvement
A core tenet of Kotlin’s development philosophy, as outlined by Andrey Breslav, is the importance of ideas and the relentless pursuit of improvement. He emphasized that the Kotlin team at JetBrains actively seeks and values feedback from the developer community. This feedback loop is critical, whether it comes through direct communication, bug reports, feature requests, or even passively through anonymized usage statistics collected by JetBrains’ IDEs. These statistics, he explained, help the team understand how Kotlin is used in real-world scenarios, identify pain points (like slow code completion in specific environments), and prioritize areas for enhancement.
This data-informed approach allows the Kotlin team to make more effective decisions about the language’s future direction. Andrey encouraged attendees to participate in this feedback process, assuring them that their input, no matter how small, contributes to making Kotlin better for everyone. He cited examples where community feedback directly influenced language features and tooling improvements, reinforcing the idea that Kotlin’s evolution is a collaborative effort. This commitment to listening and adapting ensures that Kotlin remains a pragmatic and powerful tool that addresses the real-world needs of developers.
Software as a Collaborative Endeavor
The third pillar, software, encompasses not only the Kotlin language itself but also the rich ecosystem of libraries, tools, and frameworks that surround it. Andrey Breslav highlighted the importance of this broader ecosystem in making Kotlin a productive and enjoyable language to work with. He acknowledged the contributions of the community in building these resources, from open-source libraries to educational materials and tutorials.
Furthermore, Andrey spoke about JetBrains’ ongoing efforts to enhance the Kotlin tooling, including the compiler and IDE support, to improve performance, stability, and developer experience. He touched upon initiatives aimed at making Kotlin more versatile, enabling its use across various platforms—JVM, Android, JavaScript, Native—and for different types of applications, from server-side systems to mobile apps and web frontends. The keynote celebrated the milestones achieved, such as the growing adoption of Kotlin Multiplatform, while also looking ahead to future challenges and opportunities. Andrey concluded by reiterating that every form of participation, from writing code and tutorials to sharing experiences and even simple social media interactions, adds value to the Kotlin community and contributes to its collective success.