Switch to Kotlin from Java for Android Development
Course info
Course info
Description
At the core of developing an Android app using Kotlin is a thorough knowledge of how to start creating Android apps using Kotlin in place of Java. In Switch to Kotlin from Java for Android Development, you will learn techniques on how to migrate from Java and start using Kotlin as a first-class language for developing Android applications. First, you will learn how to use existing Android APIs in your project using Kotlin, such as SharedPreferences, Retrofit, Realm and material design features like Navigation Drawer and Recycler View. Next, you will explore how to manage Views and Adapters using the Kotlin-Android Extension plugin. Finally, you will discover how to implement Kotlin features in your application, such as higher-order functions, lambda expressions, extension functions, models, anonymous class objects, companion objects, and various Kotlin classes and, thus, leverage the power of Kotlin in your app. When you are finished with this course, you will have a foundational understanding of using Kotlin in your Android apps instead of Java which will help you to transform your existing Android project written in Java into Kotlin and adopt Kotlin as your primary language for developing Android apps for personal and/or commercial use.
About the author
Sriyank is a passionate software developer and loves to share his knowledge through his blogs and video courses. He follows "share and gain" principle which led him to publish many courses online. Though he has a deep love for Android he also specializes in other mobile app platforms such as iOS and also web development frameworks such as Laravel. He started his journey of sharing knowledge by holding hands-on workshops in various top level Indian Institutes such as NITs and IITs which eventually made him the speaker of one of the Google Developers Groups India which further supported his workshops in many more institutions. Currently Sriyank is working as freelance software developer and a proud online trainer. Apart from this, he loves to travel and explore new places.
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Section Introduction Transcripts
Course Overview
Hi, this is Sriyank Siddhartha, and I welcome you all to my course of Switch to Kotlin from Java for Android Development. I am an Android developer, and so far I have authored several courses on Pluralsight. Whenever there is something new in the market, I really get excited as I couldn't control to master it first, and share my valuable experience with all of you, by creating the video courses. So here I present before you, this course, where I will discuss my experience of how powerful is Kotlin in comparison to Java. When Kotlin was officially declared as a first-class Android language, then as a developer there must be quite a few questions coming to your mind. Such as, should I switch to Kotlin, or should I continue using Java in my project? Or even you must have thought that, should I leave Java forever, and start using Kotlin? And also, you must have thought that, if I start using Kotlin in my project, then what are the possible challenges that I might face? Or, if you have your current Android project in Java, then how should you transform your current, existing project into Kotlin? The answer to all of your queries and apprehensions lies in this course, where we will cover the major topics to experience the power of Kotlin. So some of the major topics that we will cover in this course would be: How to get started with Kotlin in Android? How do we manage views while using Kotlin? And also, how do we finally say goodbye to the findViewByID ceremonies? How to use existing Android APIs, and also the third party open source libraries, such as Retrofit and Realm Database, while using Kotlin in your Android application. And then, we will experience how powerful are Kotlin features, for which Kotlin is gaining a lot of attention. Finally, we will use object-relational database to persist structured data in local database, using Realm Library. And there are a lot more topics that we will cover in this course to depict the importance of Kotlin language. Also, this course is more of practicals than theories. So we will cover a lot more topics while implementing Kotlin in our demo videos. So, by the end of this course, you will get a clear picture of how powerful is Kotlin in comparison to Java for creating mobile applications. So come, join me, and let's together leverage the power of Kotlin in the schools, only at Pluralsight.
Using Kotlin Classes in Android
Hi, this is Sriyank Siddhartha, and welcome to the next module of this course. In this module, we are going to implement the Kotlin classes in our project. Now, Kotlin provides us with various options for implementation of the classes. And as per our project requirement, I will try to show you most of them. For example, initially, I will show you what is object declaration and how do we use it in our project. And within this topic of object declaration, we also have the concept of companion object. From our previous videos, we know that the companion object are used to store the variables and metrics that can be compared to that of static variables and methods, respectively in case of Java. Proceeding, we will check out how do we implement the interface in Kotlin. Now, the interface in Kotlin is similar to that of Java. And next, we will see the advantage of using Kotlin over Java by saying goodbye to getters and setters. Moving forward, we will check out how do we implement the primary constructors, and also, it's importance for reducing the redundant code. And in the end, we will check out what is a data class and how do we use it within our project. So, let's get started from the next video onwards.
Leveraging the Power of Kotlin
Hi! This is Sriyank Siddhartha, and welcome to the next module of this course. Kotlin is packaged with a lot of features that are absent in Java. So in this module we will leverage the power of Kotlin by exploring few of the Kotlin specific features. As for example, we will explore what is extension function and how do we use it within our project. Next we will check out what are default parameters. Next we will check out lambda expressions. Now lambda was introduced in Java, in Version 8 but in Kotlin it is always ready to use. Next we will check out what are high order functions. And along with this we will also check out what are inline functions. So all these features are basically Kotlin specific and makes Kotlin a very powerful language over Java. So let us explore these features and implement it within our application.