New Release Also Features Project Wizard for Easy Creation of Projects of Different Types
Kotlin 1.4, an upgrade to JetBrains’ Java alternative, is now available as a production release. Highlights of the update include new IDE and compiler capabilities.
IDE improvements in Kotlin 1.4 include a coroutine debugger and a Kotlin Project Wizard, which creates Kotlin projects of different types. The IDE also gains 40 new quick fixes, intentions, and inspections. And thanks to IDE performance tweaks, autocomplete suggestions and content highlighting in large Kotlin files are faster.
A new compiler in Kotlin 1.4 features a more powerful type inference algorithm. There also are new JVM and JavaScript back ends, currently in an alpha mode. A hierarchical project structure in Kotlin 1.4 enables sharing of code between a subset of targets, such as similar iOS-related targets for iOS ARM64 devices. In addition, developers can use platform-dependent libraries from common code shared among several native targets.
Instructions for getting started with Kotlin can be found at kotlinlang.org. Statically typed Kotlin is positioned for the JVM, Android development, and the browser. In May 2017 Google endorsed Kotlin for the development of Android mobile apps.
Other features in Kotlin 1.4 include:
- SAM (single abstract method) conversions for Kotlin interfaces.
- An explicit API mode for library authors.
- Mixing of named and positional arguments.
- Trailing comma.
- Callable reference improvements.
- Experimental type annotations.
- Use of break and continue inside when in loops