Hi all. I set out to convince my employer to start...

# announcements

[liminal]

Hi all. I set out to convince my employer to start using inline classes in our android codebase while they are still experimental. Does anyone have any arguments for or against using them while they are still experimental aside from the obvious experimental status and the fact that inline classes are awesome.

[nfrankel]

no argument
just do it if you think it makes sense
and don’t tell

[liminal]

Good idea in general but not an option in my case

[gildor]

Why do you want to use inline classes? Do you have particular use case?

[liminal]

We have a lot of functions with primitive params that cannot be logically combined into data classes. Using inline classes should reduce room for error.

[gildor]

You can use ordinary classes/data classes, performance difference may be negligatable in most cases (but not all, of course)

[liminal]

That's a valid point. Is there a general feeling that you know of that inline classes will become stable in the same shape they are in now and an estimated timeline

[gildor]

And on some point (when inline classes will be stable or your manager will be fine with experimental) make them inline

[gildor]

Most probably they will be stable, there are many experimental features already in stdlib based on inline classes

[gildor]

But no timeline, as usual

[liminal]

Great. Can you point to an example of stdlib feature using inline classes? What do you look for to find it

[liminal]

Thanks @gildor

[gildor]

kotlin.Result, Unsigned types, kotlin.time.Duration