Hi People, I am struggling with a client who want...

# announcements

[Robert MacLean]

Hi People,

I am struggling with a client who wants only people with Kotlin/JVM experience cause that is what they use (it makes sense for the ask) but my struggle is that Kotlin people are hard to find and I’ve stated that getting other language developers and skilling up is viable. I believe the skilling up from other languages like C# or JS to Kotlin is not difficult and there is overlap of skills (especially for C#).

Would love to know if you agree or disagree with me and what your experience coming from other languages to Kotlin?

[gildor]

Well, I think person with any JVM experience (Java/Scala/Groovy/…) probably is better choice (at least in short perspective)

[gildor]

it highly depends on what is actual product is, I expect that it's some JVM application (let's say it's backend), if so, I would say Java/Scala/Groovy, C#, {any backend developer }

[gildor]

I don’t think that language is a big problem, especially Kotlin, which is pretty easy to learn
I think target platform is much more important

[tddmonkey]

Define “viable”. Any decent programmer should be able to pick up new languages, but it’s not an overnight thing - your client will need to invest in them taking time and money. If all you know is JS then a jump to Kotlin is going to be massive - it’s not just about syntax at that point, it’s a different paradigm and a completely different ecosystem. The difference between C# is smaller but it’s still there.

You also need to consider what other skills are required. Backend jobs these day typically require some kind of cloud knowledge as well. Does your average JS developer have any idea about how backend systems are built/deployed/monitored? C# peeps are likely to be experienced in Azure, whereas your typical JVM shop would be AWS or Google.

Do the non JVM developers even want to skill up in another language?

[nfrankel]

if you don’t have choice, then of course you should try to find non-kotlin developers who are willing to learn it
here’s a piece on learning a new language
https://blog.frankel.ch/on-learning-new-programming-language/
TL;DR: syntax is the easiest part

[Robert MacLean]

Well, I think person with any JVM experience (Java/Scala/Groovy/…) probably is better choice (at least in short perspective)

Agreed - short term perspective could be a consideration but these are multiple year projects so over the life time, it would be negated

I expect that it’s some JVM application

Spot on

your client will need to invest in them taking time and money.

I have been taking the approach that they skill up before the client - obviously that means no working experience, just exercises, courses etc… because it isn’t right to get people to pay totally for this

If all you know is JS then a jump to Kotlin is going to be massive - it’s not just about syntax at that point, it’s a different paradigm and a completely different ecosystem.

Absolutely a great point. I feel the JS to Kotlin syntax is close - but the ecosystem is massively different. The paradigm though are similar, npm to Gradle for example. And even more so if you doing node.

Backend jobs these day typically require some kind of cloud knowledge as well. Does your average JS developer have any idea about how backend systems are built/deployed/monitored? C# peeps are likely to be experienced in Azure, whereas your typical JVM shop would be AWS or Google.

Don’t really agree with your specifics but they are good considerations and great examples of the different ecosystem issues. Around the specifics a lot ofmodern front end web dev is node servers in docker images + k8s deployed to the cloud. Lots of metrics through things like new relic for example. Even language to cloud is not that clear especially when you in docker images. And haven’t touched on people using things like Lambdas written in JS 🙂

here’s a piece on learning a new language

Magnificent - thank you. Totally referencing that tweet of yours too.

[Rob Elliot]

A half way decent JVM developer who knows scala & Java well will pick up Kotlin in no time.

[Nir]

I think any developer whos' experienced in a statically typed language with generics, with at least some OO elements, is going to pick up Kotlin extremely fast

[Nir]

Kotlin was very easy to learn coming from C++. I'd assume it's even slightly easier coming from C#.
I don't think it's hard in general, but IMHO generics is the most likely sticking point. Even coming from C++, which has a more complicated generics system generally, it took me a bit to pick up some aspects of Kotlins generics. So after Kotlin, I'd just look at the best devs with experience in such languages.

[Rob Elliot]

I think the point about platform knowledge has strength - there’s a whole load of knowledge about the Java stdlib, JVM specification, adoptopenjdk JVM behaviour, JVM build tools, JVM 3rd party libraries that is just as valuable as a server side Kotlin dev as it was as a server side Java dev.

[Nir]

Yeah, someone coming from a JVM language still has an edge, all things being equal

[Nir]

personally, I would prioritize how well I felt they simply know how to program, over the JVM aspect. I.e. I wouldn't hire a Java dev who I felt had programmed noticeably worse in the interview than a C# dev.

[Nir]

But for sure it has some weight

[Peter Graham]

a JS-only dev might have a hard time learning kotlin. I would look for someone with Typescript experience with knowledge of async/await or RxJS. angular already uses typescript and RxJS out of the box so someone with that kind of experience might have an easier time