I’ve started with Kotlin a couple of days ago and ...
# getting-startedj
Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:08 PMI’ve started with Kotlin a couple of days ago and I’m pretty overwhelmed, because I don’t know ANY Java. I’ll be using Kotlin at my new job. Should I start with Java? If so, what’s the best resource for getting started with Java?
Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:09 PMCurrently building out a web server with Ktor, and I’m following along with a tutorial/extending the tutorial when necessary (eg. doing upserts with Exposed, foreign keys, etc)
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Dominaezzz
09/15/2019, 9:10 PMYou do not have to start with java, unless you're working with a codebase that is mostly java.
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Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:11 PMRight, that’s what I was hoping at first, but the only thing is that they’re using Dropwizard, and the docs for it are all Java. I feel like I’m handicapping myself a bit if i don’t know some java beforehand and jump into only kotlin?
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Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:15 PMwhat other languages are you familiar with?
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Dominaezzz
09/15/2019, 9:15 PMIMHO, the languages aren't too different, you should be fine learning Kotlin now and picking java as the need suffices.
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Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:17 PMJavaScript (fullstack) and Python. That totally makes sense- I just got a bit worried when trying to read the Dropwizard docs, and eventually gave up and decided to use Ktor for developing a web server.
Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:17 PMthanks for your responses, by the way 😆
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Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:19 PMyou're probably fine then if you know ES6 and python already. Java itself is pretty straightforward, but the library ecosystem is known for being baroque
Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:21 PMespecially web libraries and frameworks
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serebit
09/15/2019, 9:29 PMGoing into Kotlin with existing knowledge of Java helps, but it isn't necessary to understand the language
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Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:43 PMafter reading some of the dropwizard docs, here, yeah that's exactly the sort of thing I was referring to. 😄 There are good reasons why it's structured the way it is but don't at all feel bad if you don't understand what it's doing from the outset. Most of it is a bunch of reflection/annotation library magic trying to automate/codify domain best practices that the average java expert wouldn't know offhand either.
Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:44 PMKotlin/ktor just get the advantage of being able to autocomplete your way to success due to statically typed dsls powering most of it but you get a lot of the same concepts represented there
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Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:45 PMah, i see! thanks for the info. yeah, ktor has been really nice, but i’m going to have to use dropwizard at the new job- how would you suggest i learn it, despite the fact that the docs are incredibly confusing to me?
Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:45 PMi’ve seen a couple kotlin ports of tutorial projects for DW, so I was thinking that might be a good entry point.
Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:46 PMi don’t understand the ecosystem really- what’s the primary framework folks are using for server-side KT right now? spring? DW? ktor?
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Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:46 PMI think you'd have to ask some others around here, my focus is Android and I keep up on some web stuff as a hobby 🙂
Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:47 PMthere's #server that might be helpful
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Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:47 PMall good! thanks so much for your help so far 😆 yep, joined that one.
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Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:47 PMseems like you already found it, yeah
Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:48 PMI like ktor, spring boot seems popular and has a strong kotlin following, dropwizard looks solid but fundamentally java-based - which is fine, but you might find tying into other ideas like coroutines to be a bit manual
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Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:49 PMright, that’s the impression i was getting. it’s interesting that there aren’t really any tuts out there with DW and kotlin. i did find ONE article that has you implementing a ridiculously simple API which worked for me, but right when I started needing to consume or respond with JSON, I was lost hahaha
Jacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:49 PMJacob Richards
09/15/2019, 9:50 PMIf I do get deeper into DW, I’m for sure going to write a tutorial for it, bc it’s v strange that one doesn’t exist for kt.
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Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:51 PMteaching is a great way to learn 🙂
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Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:55 PMfwiw even after writing and using ktor adapter plugins myself I still find it more readable to do something like moshi serialization with their kotlin codegen plugin by hand, and then keep some plain extension functions around as helpers where needed
Adam Powell
09/15/2019, 9:57 PMit's so painful in java and the java community has such envy over dynamic languages' parsing support that you end up with a lot of infra and annotation soup to close the gap in code golf competitions
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