Do you want to develop Play Store apps with minimal downtime and less coding?
Well, then, you need to learn Android app development with Kotlin. Let’s dive in!
Steps To Learn Kotlin For Android App Development
Here are the steps to make an Android app in Kotlin:
Setup A Kotlin Environment With IntelliJ IDEA
IntelliJ IDEA is an integrated development environment which is developed by JetBrains. You can use it to run your Kotlin codes. Here’s how to set it up:
- Download and install a recent version of IntelliJ IDEA
- Click on File, then New and press Project
- Select Kotlin -> JVM | IDEA
- Give a name to your project (for example, ‘Kotlin Beginner’) and select its SDK version
- Create a new Kotlin file under the source folder and provide a name (for example, ‘Learn Kotlin’)
- After you create the file, it is time to add the main function. You can use a shortcut (type main and press tab) to do this.
- Add a line of code
For example: println(“Kotlin for Android”)
- Run the application by clicking on the sidebar's green 'Run' button. You can also press Crtl + Shift + F10 to do the same.
Learn The Hello World Program
The Hello World program is one of the basic programs for every programming language. Learning how to write this program using Kotlin is one of the basic things to learn in Kotlin app development. Here is how you may do it:
- Open your notepad and create a file named ‘practise.kt’
- Type the following code
// Kotlin Hello World Program
fun main(args: Array) {
println("Hello, World!!!")
}
- Compile the program in command-line compiler
$ kotlinc practice.kt
- Run the program on IntelliJ IDEA. The output will look like this:
$kotlin practise.kt
Hello, World!!!
Learn The Kotlin Data Types
Kotlin has all its data types in the form of objects. The primitive data type of this programming language is its most fundamental one. All other data types of Kotlin are reference types like strings and arrays.
Here are the different data types in Kotlin:
- Integer data type
- Boolean data type
- Floating-point data type
- Character data type
Take A Note Of The Variables In Kotlin
You need to declare every variable before using it in Kotlin. If you attempt to use a variable before declaring it, there will be a syntax error.
You can declare variables in Kotlin using:
- var keyword for Mutable variables
- val keyword for Immutable variables
Understand The Conditional Statements In Kotlin
For developing Android apps with Kotlin, you need to understand its conditional statements thoroughly:
- if-else expression
- while loop
- do-while loop
- for loop
Various Aspects of Kotlin Programming Language to Learn
In this section of our guide to learn Kotlin app development we have mentioned the crucial aspects of Kotlin that you need to cover for learning this programming language:
- Collections in Kotlin (Kotlin Arraylist, Kotlin mutableSetOf(), Kotlin hashSetOf(), mapOf(), etc.)
- Object-oriented programming concepts ( Settlers and getters, Nested class, Inner class, Custom Accessors, Constructors, etc)
- Exception handling in Kotlin (Nested tyre block, Multiple catch block,
- Null safety (Kotlin Smart Casting, Explicit type casting, etc.)
- Scope functions (Kotlin scope function and apply vs with)
- Interoperability with Java (Calling Kotlin from Java and Calling Java from Kotlin)
- Kotlin Coroutines (Suspend function, runBlocking, Launch vs Async, etc.)
- Miscellaneous (Annotations, Reflection, Delegation, etc.)
To learn Android app development with Kotlin, you must know about these topics in-depth. Thus, taking professional help is recommended. An excellent example in this regard is Dhruvon. It is a one-of-a-kind platform that simplifies coding languages for people of different backgrounds. In addition, this platform provides unlimited course access at affordable fees, and you can learn from anywhere on the globe.