1/ Someone raised a question yesterday. "I tried to encourage an organisation to adopt Kotlin. But their concern was we won't find Kotlin programmers." Here's the pitch I would make to such organisations.
2/ If you use Java, there are practically zero good reasons why you cannot move on to kotlin. Have one of your developers attempt to learn kotlin. It probably will get done in a week or two time for the developer to learn kotlin.
3/ By learn kotlin I neither mean having advanced kotlin skills, nor do I mean just learn syntax. I mean learn enough to be able to write code in even if it does require frequent lookups to documentation.
4/ I also mean learn enough to be able to appreciate how the code is not just smaller, but how it allows the developer to keep so much more in his head. Anything that you delegate to the stronger static type system means lesser things the dev has to pack into his brains.
5/ The next thing the developer is likely to start being able to appreciate in another 2-3 weeks is how the probability of writing defect free code in the first pass goes up just because of the language change
6/ The next thing that developer will run into soon is to want to integrate with existing java libraries, and he will soon learn that given the fantastic interop with Java what a breeze Kotlin is.
7/ Pretty much most devs you send down this path are likely to find this to be true.
8/ An org using java and not wishing to consider moving to Kotlin because it can't find existing developers, is getting driven by conventionality and not willing to experiment with even a week or two's investment.
9/ Further, such an org, is in my opinion very likely not serious about providing investors a better return on investment, customers a better stronger software and programmers a more joyful environment to work in.
10/ This is no criticism of other langs or options. If not Kotlin, explore other languages too. But this is a definite criticism of those who wish to continue with that seriously low productivity, joy sapping, language called Java. There are no reasons to stick around. None.
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