Kotlin
Kotlin is an open-source statically compiled language for the JVM with a great balance between modern features and readability. Since Q3 2017, it is officially endorsed by Google to be used for Android development; so we believe it is safe to bet on it now and use it in bigger projects – thus we are rating it as ADOPT.
Benefits
- modern multi-paradigm language (Object-Oriented, Functional)
- very readable code
- implements Null-Safety
- interoperable with Java
Drawbacks
- comparatively new; though backed by Google and JetBrains
Alternatives
- We've used Groovy in quite a few projects, but we feel that with Kotlin we have a more modern, statically compiled language available. That's why for new projects, we won't use Groovy anymore.
- Scala is an extremely powerful language, but with very slow compile times and (in our opinion) way too many syntax constructs - which hinders our productivity.