KotlinConf 2018: Kotlin 1.3 RC out and Kotlin/Native hits beta

Day 2 of the Kotlin Conference 2018 just ended yesterday and announcements were made regarding the programming language. There is one more day of the conference which will be streamed live at the Kotlin website. We will look at some of the announcements made in the conference so far.

Kotlin 1.3 is now RC

Kotlin 1.3 RC is here and brings a lot of new features. Some of them are the following.

Contracts

The Kotlin compiler now does extensive static analysis to show warnings and reduce boilerplate. ‘Contracts’ in Kotlin 1.3 allow functions to explicitly describe its own behavior in a way which is understood by the compiler.

Coroutines

Kotlin Coroutines are no longer experimental and will be supported like other features starting from Kotlin version 1.3. Coroutines delegate most of the functionality to libraries and helps in providing a fluid experience that is scalable when needed.

Multiplatform projects

The multiplatform projects model has been reworked to improve expressiveness and flexibility. It is in line with the language’s goal to function on all platforms. Currently Kotlin supports JVM, Android, JavaScript, iOS, Linux, Windows, Mac and embedded systems like STM32. This is beneficial for reusing code.

Kotlin/Native is now in beta

Kotlin/Native is designed to enable compilation in platforms where virtual machines do not work.

An example would be embedded devices or iOS. Kotlin/Native is a solution to situations when developers need to produce a self-contained program where an additional runtime or virtual machine is not required. After several years of development, Kotlin/Native is now beta.

The Kotlin foundation

The Kotlin Foundation is a nonprofit nonstock corporation created in 2018. It has backing from JetBrains and Google. The Kotlin Foundation aims to protect, promote and advance the development of Kotlin.