Kotlin (programming language)
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| Designed by | JetBrains |
|---|---|
| Developer | JetBrains and open source contributors |
| First appeared | 2011 |
| Stable release |
Kotlin 1.1.0 / March 1, 2017
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| Preview release |
Kotlin 1.1.0-rc-91 / February 17, 2017
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| Typing discipline | static, inferred |
| Platform | Outputs Java Virtual Machine bytecode and JavaScript source code |
| OS | Any supporting a JVM or JavaScript interpreter |
| License | Apache 2 |
| Filename extensions | .kt, .kts |
| Website | kotlinlang |
| Influenced by | |
| Java, Scala, Groovy, C#, Gosu | |
Kotlin is a statically-typed programming language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine and also can be compiled to JavaScript source code. Its primary development is from a team of JetBrains programmers based in Saint Petersburg, Russia (the name comes from the Kotlin Island, near St. Petersburg). Kotlin was named Language of the Month in the January 2012 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. While not syntax compatible with Java, Kotlin is designed to interoperate with Java code and is reliant on Java code from the existing Java Class Library, such as the collections framework.
In July 2011 JetBrains unveiled Project Kotlin, a new language for the JVM, which had been under development for a year. JetBrains lead Dmitry Jemerov said that most languages did not have the features they were looking for, with the exception of Scala. However, he cited the slow compile time of Scala as an obvious deficiency. One of the stated goals of Kotlin is to compile as quickly as Java. In February 2012, JetBrains open sourced the project under the Apache 2 license. Jetbrains hopes that the new language will drive IntelliJ IDEA sales.
Kotlin v1.0 was released on February 15, 2016. This is considered to be the first officially stable release and JetBrains has committed to long-term backwards compatibility starting with this version.
Development lead Andrey Breslav has said that Kotlin is designed to be an industrial-strength object-oriented language, and a "better language" than Java, but still be fully interoperable with Java code, allowing companies to make a gradual migration from Java to Kotlin.
Like Pascal, TypeScript, Haxe, PL/SQL, F#, Go, Rust and Scala—and unlike C and its derivatives such as C++, Java, C#, and D—Kotlin variable declarations and parameter lists have the data type come after the variable name (and with a colon separator). As in Scala and Groovy, semicolons are optional as a statement terminator; in most cases a newline is sufficient for the compiler to deduce that the statement has ended.
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