Kotlin and Android Studio: #CoffeeWithAGoogler meets Jeffrey Van Gogh Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

with the announcement of Kotlin it's an
exciting time to be an Android developer
today on coffee with a Googler I'm
chatting with one of the people who made
it happen
Geoffrey van Gogh so one of my favorite
moments at Google i/o this year was when
we did that Coughlin reveal and it was
the Android lock screen and they carved
out the K in it and the crowd went crazy
and Geoffrey I know you're one of the
guys behind this it's like what was it
like to bring Carl into Android oh it
was amazing like I joined under studio
two years ago and of course we talked
about to customers and we started
hearing that people thought that Java
was not really moving forward they
wanted to get more modern language
features and so as we start looking into
that one of the things that came up with
all these people really like Copelan and
so about a year ago I started playing
with it and like it's so much more
productive it's so much fun it could all
a lot of the things that I really liked
about c-sharp but still a lot of the
compatibility with existing Java
libraries and then they added a whole
bunch of new things on top of it as well
and so it just makes programming a lot
more fun and so we need to get this into
your customer hands and so of the weeks
months of leading up to i/o we had a lot
of talk to JetBrains and see if we could
get it done and we got it done and
people really were excited and we're
very excited of course just to start we
need to do a lot more hard technical
work to really make it a first-class
language for Android and there's a lot
more to come over the next year a lot of
cool things
so why Kotlin it's a fun language it's
like a really fun to program it's very
little code you have to write like
compared to Java you have to implement a
whole class with fuel scatter setters
hash codes equals most of my bugs are in
pojos oh yeah in Coplin it's one line of
code and like there's many more examples
like that it's just a fun productive
language that makes your whole
programming experience so much easier
and can i still be productive as an
Android developer if I'm using like
third-party libraries and open source
java stuff oh absolutely
Copland interrupts with java are very
simply
they both compiled to Java code which we
didn't compelled to dalvik bytecode for
running on Android and so it runs the
same on the OS and on the the source
language site it has really good
interrupts between Java and coupling you
can call Cortland from Java Java from
Kirkland you can even have inheritance
where your Java class is extended by
coupling class and extended by a Java
class again it works very smoothly nice
and then like from a tooling perspective
and Android studio do I get like
file/new Kotlin oh yeah you can either
in an existing project at a new Clubman
file or when you start a new project you
just check the books and the wizard
saying i want call in able to already
create the default activities in
coupling source and i set all the
settings in your plugin Gradle plugin
it's very similar things be cool you
know this actually really reminds me of
when Swift first came out and there are
a lot of objective-c developers and then
Swift came out but it had that level of
compatibility there as a Swift developer
I could consume Objective C libraries
and that kanessa and then Swift really
took off so hopefully Kotlin will take
off in android in the same way yeah I
love the language so I definitely like
to see it's x16 now so if I'm an Android
developer and I've been using Android
studio for a while and if I've got like
a number of third-party libraries in
Java that I'm using can I continue to
use those of them yeah absolutely so the
way that coupling works it compiles down
to Java bytecode which is the same thing
that the Java compiler does and then we
take our tools the dexstar that takes
the java bytecode and convert it to
dalvik bytecode okay and so for the
Android OS it's just the same it's just
dalvik bytecode it doesn't know any
different and so like copelan actually
has a really good intro story with the
Java code and you can actually call
coupling code from Java and Java code
from Kotlin and you can have inheritance
hierarchies in between and it just works
fine because in the end it's all
bytecode okay cool so now I'm like I've
only used Java in Android it's on my
to-do list to learn Cartland but what
why all the love for Kotlin what why why
this language in particular so I think
if you look at the language it's not a
particularly innovative language right
that there's not a lot of new research
going on but they didn't set out to yet
they wanted to be a productive language
so they looked at a lot of other
languages that have a lot of modern
features and they figured how can we
interrupt this with Java without having
to break the world
and make developers more productive I
think the area that they are more
innovative is that they started from the
tool side like most languages they start
there right like a standard compiler
batch compiler every takes source input
and run a command line and produce
output JetBrains is a tool company and
they started like how do we do this in
iit how do you make sure that
refactoring works how do we assure that
static analysis work I believe that they
had the front end working before they
had the back end working so it's it's a
very different mindset and I think the
real innovation areas in the tooling and
that's why you see the people are so
productive the tooling works very
closely with language and makes you more
productive than in other languages now
your role in Google is you work on the
compiler yes so I run several teams in
energy oh and one of them is the
compiler team so we used to have the
Jack compiler which is converted Java
source code to Delphic bytecode and
earlier this year we announced that we
are no longer investing in that and so
we started investing a couple tools we
were doing Java eight disagreeing for
people who want to use Java 8 language
features so if you say Copelan isn't my
thing you can still use all the new Java
8 features in Android studio these days
we're also investing in the Dexter so
the Dexter it said converts your Java
bytecode to dalvik bytecode and we're
doing more and more optimizations they
are making sure you a smaller code we're
also doing work to make sure it works
very well to me with Coplin so that we
can make sure that your debugging
scenarios were correctly etc and then
the other thing I'm working on is I'm
working together with JetBrains
on the coupling language committee to
make sure that we evolve the language
correctly and so that mainly focus is
around breaking changes and deprecation
policies we want to make sure that
Kotlin is a language that people can
depend on for many years to come and so
there shouldn't be any surprises that
features no longer work when you want to
compile your app two years forward right
got it
so you're part of the language committee
steering collin correctly so we're not
just investing in Kotlin like being part
of our tools but we're really heavily
invested in the language itself yeah
as we not announced at Google i/o there
is a foundation being formed and as part
of that there is a committee with people
on person from JetBrains on personal
Google and independent and so we were
looking at the language making sure that
we don't break people as you're building
new cool features excellent that sounds
really cool now um the one thing I hear
about Kotlin always is that it's fun
yeah it is it's fun to play with like
what makes it so much fun so for me it's
particularly fun that I have been doing
program languages for my whole career
working on compilers and static analysis
tools for 15 years Wow so I always like
to see what cool things people do in
language and what tricks you can do with
it but I think for even for people who
are just writing programs for a living
not necessarily you can like program
language geeks it it makes it a lot more
fun because you don't have to write all
the boilerplate code Java is very phobos
like when you write like it now let's
say you have a class they're describing
a customer you have to write all the
fields then all the getter and setter
methods your a good hash code equals in
coupling that's just one line of code it
will generate all the boilerplate and
make sure it is correct okay and so
that's just one example there are so
many things where they made sure that
you have to write less code that it's
less buggy like you don't have to worry
as much about the null pointer issues
because they track all the null pointer
information and if you compile errors if
you mess it up okay and like you're just
going back to that moment today oh when
we announced it it was like it was such
a surprise
not just for like people outside of
Google but many of us inside of Google
and it's like I sit really close to you
here at our clinic I had no idea I was
sitting in the audience and I just blew
my mind that yes supporting column you
really want to keep it secret
like we didn't want to leak like we
won't have a big surprise
and also like we needed a time to make
sure that everything and through we want
to make sure we had a good deal set up
like to protect the future of the
language and so like we want to make
sure we had everything right before we
announced it I mean it was such a
surprise but such a great surprise
because social media let up as you
probably saw it I own what's the
feedback been like a lot of people love
it
we heard a lot of people saying well I
had I was wearing it I had to go argue
with my manager
but now that people supports it like
it's it's a done deal so what's good
when we prevent people arguing with
their manager it is as a manager
yourself I'm sure you appreciate it yeah
although a good technical argument there
I like to have those in mind so I'm so
the feedback was generally very positive
yeah I mean I think there was some worry
about people thinking that now we're no
longer investing in Java but as I said
we just added a Java 8 supports into
Android studio and we'll keep investing
there as well we understand that it's
not for everybody right
and so we plan to invest in in Java
functionality as well
so if I'm a new developer and I'm
getting started and starting with
Android and I'm you know I've heard all
about Kotlin and how much fun it is how
would I get started like building this
so it's actually really easy to get
started because it's not a either/or
choice you don't have to say well I'm
gonna either choose Java or Cortland
okay you can just take an existing Java
project and at one coupling file and
write one functioning cup in and keep
the rest of your app in Java and
everything keeps working cool or you
could go as extremists writing your
whole Epping code and never look again a
Java okay so you can go anywhere in that
spectrum so like an Android studio with
my file new project experience other
Kotlin templates yes so either you can
if you have an existing project you can
just add a new cult and file or if you
want to start with a SAM project from
scratch like in The Wizard there will be
a new checkbox in energy to do 3.0 and
above
that's an able call them okay Nate will
do all the work of adding content to
your Android Android Gradle file to load
the Klopman plug-in it will also create
the first activity in common source nice
nice so then if I just want to get
started with Kotlin Android studio seems
to be the way to go
yep yep and then if you're not sure if
you want to try it there's also on
Copeland landlord there is online hello
world sandbox you can play there as well
oh so the sandbox I can start typing
code in my browser I'm testing it out
and this is on the the Android developer
site I know it's some coupling
oh I see okay and but the Android studio
I get from the Android developers yes oh
so if I want to get started it's worth
playing Kotlin lang org and go to
developer.android.com download Android
studio cool and is there any like words
of advice you'd give to developers
getting out and starting with this stuff
just try it out it's so much fun you'll
you'll you'll realize that you don't
have to write all your good code and
coding become so much more fun sounds
great so thank you so much Jeffrey
thanks a lot thank you thanks everybody
for watching this episode of coffee with
a Googler and for Jeffrey being our
guest if you like are like me and you're
just itching to get started with Kotlin
we've heard that that's the way to do it
the common language common language yep
and also download Android studio and you
can just do file new experience and use
the templates and you just start coding
so I'm looking really looking forward to
seeing the kind of things even a bit
thank you very much and thanks again
Jeff
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