Coding in Kotlin, like speaking in English

I’ve been using Kotlin for 2,5 years now, but it still amazes me how naturally this superb language allows me to write code.

Regularly I try to solve simple issues with writing the words into the IDE like into a chat. After typing a few characters (writ for example), I’ll pick a suitable writeThisBlogPost() method from the suggestion list.

Sometimes such a method does not exist, and I have to write my own implementation for that, but Kotlin’s interface is so cool, that often it is already there for me.

Sample

Let me show you one example from yesterday: we wanted to know if none of the items are loading.

If you came from the Java world maybe you’ll write code like this:

val items: List<Item>

val isNothingLoading = !isLoading()

fun isLoading(): Boolean {
    for (item in items) {
        if (item.isLoading) {
            return true
        }
    }
    return false
}

As a Kotliner my first thought was this:

val items: List<Item>

val isNothingLoading = !items.any { it.isLoading }

Saying out loud what I wanted (none of the items are loading) I gave a shot to Kotlin, and it had this excellent built-in solution for my problem.

val items: List<Item>

val isNothingLoading = items.none { it.isLoading }

Conclusion

I highly recommend learning new language features as I do: type your need into the IDE, and check the list of suggestions. If you’ve chosen the appropriate word, you’ll often find something useful.