why Kotlin decided to have data type to be specified after variable name? this has some limitations, for example code completion with java IDEA suggests you a variable name based on the type, but in Kotlin type is unknown at the moment when variable name is specified..

with Kotlin IDEA often suggests type based on variable name

IDEA suggests to complete both variable name and type based on first several chars of its name.

This order also has benefits. • the name is usually more important than the type • names start in the same code column, so it's easier to read a list of all variables • if your declaration starts with long type (happens quickly with generics) this would sort of hide the actually interesting name • in many cases the explicit type declaration can be omitted, which would lead to inconsistencies in you code if type declaration came first.

Also worth saying for historical reasons that this type placement decision has been influenced by Scala.

In addition to what's been said (esp. the name being more important than the type), I also find the order helpful because I switch back and forth between Kotlin and Typescript. It's easier to come back to Kotlin after a while on the front end because the typing syntax is so similar.

Type inference, which I say makes it worth it

thank you guys for explanation, pretty clear now.. but still, how name completion works in this case? having Java I type:

MyClass

then just ctrl+space and IDEA suggest

myClass

as var name.. but with Kotlin:

var

.. and then happens nothing, right? so type inference is a price paid for names autocompletion..

If I type

var s

into IntelliJ and hit Ctrl+Space, I get suggested to me names based on every single class starting with

s

(beginning with

string

and going on down into less frequent names).

isn't that too excessive?

I’ll trade auto completing a name based on type for readability any day. Also, there are more instances where an IDE will suggest a poor name than there are it will suggest a good name. For example, how often do you want to name a variable string or int? That doesn’t describe what it does at all. Trying to understand when the auto suggested names are really that helpful? But I also do a lot of iOS. Switching back and forth from Kotlin and Swift is so much nicer than Swift and Java. 😂 That’s personal though ha.