Hi dear reader. Today it’s a very special post, because I’m really happy to announce the release of my first book: Kotlin for Android Developers
Kotlin for Android Developers is a lean publication, which it’s in its early stages, and will grow with your help and ideas.
If you follow this blog, you already know I’m a Kotlin fan. I’ve written about it several times here.
Motivation
I think Kotlin is an awesome language that simplifies Android developers lives a lot. It’s a very simple and direct language, but really powerful. Kotlin brings many aspects of functional programming to Android development. And one of the best features is that it’s highly integrated with our IDE.
I recommend you at least taking a look to my articles about Kotlin and decide by yourself:
- Kotlin for Android (I): Introduction
- Kotlin for Android (II): Create a new project
- Kotlin for Android (III): Extension functions and default values
- Kotlin for Android (IV): Custom Views and Android Extensions
Although Kotlin is fully usable today, the first final release is really close, and I’m sure many Android developers will be glad to move to this new language, so I want this book to serve them (and you) as a guide to migrate from Java.
About the book
In this book, I’ll be creating an Android app from ground using Kotlin as the main language. The idea is to learn the language by example, instead of following a typical structure. I’ll be stopping to explain the most interesting concepts and ideas about Kotlin, comparing it with Java 7. This way, you can see what the differences are and which parts of the language will help you speed up your work.
This book is not meant to be a language reference, but a tool for Android developers to learn Kotlin and be able to continue with their own projects by themselves. I’ll be solving many of the typical problems we have to face in our daily lives by making use of the language expressiveness and some other really interesting tools and libraries.
The book is very practical, so it is recommended to follow the examples and the code in front of a computer and try everything it’s suggested. You could, however, take a first read to get a broad idea and then dive into practice.
As you could read before, this is a lean publication. This means that the book is written and progresses with you. I’ll continually write new content and review the existing based on your comments and your suggestions. In the end, it will also be your book. I want this book to be the perfect tool for Android developers, and as such, all the help and ideas will be welcomed.
The repository
As mentioned before, this book consists of the creation of an App using Kotlin, as a way to learn by example. As the book progresses, the code will progress with it. You can get it from Github:
Kotlin for Android Developers: The repository
Get it now!!
Do you want to get the book? Please follow this link:
Kotlin for Android Developers: The book
Thanks for becoming part of this exciting project!
This is so awesome that you popularize Kotlin (especially Kotlin for Android).
I’ve been using it since, I guess, M5 (when the Darcula color scheme was just appeared :), and in spite of Kotlin was just a year old, it saved a lot of time for me.
BTW recently I’ve posted a note about Kotlin vs Java comparison. It’s in russian, but I think it might be thrilling for your readers:
http://azagroup.ru/kotlin-vs-java-basic-syntax
I’m sure Google Translate will do it good enough to understand it. Thanks for your comment!
In which format are you going to publish the book ?
The sample seems to be only available in pdf format, and it does not play well with a small screen.
Yeah, if you look at the top right of the page, you can see the formats : epub, mobi and pdf.
Hola Antonio parece interesante el lenguaje quería saber si es posible pasar una librería en java a kotlin por ejemplo un librería como androidplot o si se puede complementar con el proyecto
Saludos
Hola Fernando. Puedes usar cualquier librería hecha en Java con Kotlin, la interoperabilidad entre lenguajes hará que puedas usarla como si hubiera sido escrita en Kotlin.
Hi Fernando. You can use any library written in Java with Kotlin. The interoperability between languages will make that you can use the library as if it was written in Kotlin.
I just bought the book 🙂 I think it is awesome for you to help promoting Kotlin in Android community.
Thanks! I’ll do my best to make it helpful.
Did you actually use the anko lib in your book? I find it really cool how fast and easy you can create apps with that, but there are not really any tutorials except the official one…
I don’t use Anko to generate layouts, if that’s your question. I use some other functions of it btw. The app is open source, you can take a look: https://github.com/antoniolg/Kotlin-for-Android-Developers
Is this a entry-level book or it fits for developers that already have a expertise in android?
The Android level you need to understand this book is very basic. This is a simple App, so unless you know nothing at all of Android, I’m sure you’ll be able to follow it without any problems.
OK! Just asking because I’m a android developer and I’m looking for something that focus in kotlin and not android itself. I just bought the book and will start reading now =)
i just download the source code on github,run on my app ,but there is no any data, am i wrong ?
It may be for different reasons. The one that usually happens to lots of people is to use Anko 0.10.1, which had a bug in data bases. I still don’t know if 0.10.2 (which was released yesterday or so) fixes it. In the meanwhile, you can use 0.10.0