Since Kotlin was announced as a new supported language in Android at last year’s Google I/O conference, many people have been interested in finding the best options to learn it.
Launched by JetBrains seven years ago, Kotlin gained acceptance among the developer´s community due to the simplification of its code lines; it is considered by many to be more understandable than Java without having to sacrifice performance, for instance.
Even though Java continues to be the most popular programming language supported by Android, the use of this open sourced programming language, under Apache 2.0 licence, will increase substantially in the near future.
That said, and knowing how much you loved our articles about great books to learn such as the Top 10 Books to Learn Android Programming or the Top 5 books to learn mobile app development, we would like to share with you some of the best books you can find right now to learn Kotlin for developing Android apps:
Kotlin in Action
If you have a previous experience in Java, this is one of your best options to learn Kotlin. Written by two core developers of the Kotlin team, Kotlin in Action is divided into two parts, one teaching you the basics and the other one making you embrace the language.
This book provides you a complete overview of the language by teaching you about coding functional programming on Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or building Domain Specific Languages (DSLs), for example. Its Appendixes cover project-building, documentation and Kotlin ecosystem.
Programming Kotlin
An in-depth guide to getting you introduced to Kotlin´s features and that allows you to compare it with Java since it focuses on how to use Kotlin on the JVM.
Programming Kotlin covers topics about the basics, structured and readable object-oriented code writing, use of lambdas and higher order functions, null safety, Generics, tests integration or Microservices, among others.
Kotlin for Android Developers
Android Engineer Antonio Leiva wrote this book to teach you how to create an app from scratch using Kotlin. Targeted towards beginners, as it helps you learn Kotlin the “easy way”, this is a book full of practical examples.
Kotlin for Android Developers was created to be an introductory book that gives you the basics that allow you to find Kotlin´s differences in order to improve your work as a developer.
Fundamental Kotlin
Fundamental Kotlin is a guide with a wide table of contents that provides exact examples with notes and codes, rather than going into too much theory, as its author, Miloš Vasić, states.
A previous experience in Java is required here. The book aims to show you the most important aspects of Kotlin, so you can compare it to Java in terms of safety, conciseness, compilation speed or codebase size, for instance.
Android Development with Kotlin
This book uses common situations for programming in Android to show you ways Kotlin can make your job easier and more effectively. It covers Kotlin´s features, guiding you in a progressive learning from basic to advanced.
One of its modules is dedicated to showing you the features of Kotlin no present in Java.
So, these are some of the best books you have to learn Kotlin and understand how it differences from Java in practice.
As we said at the beginning, since Google announced its integration with Android many resources have been published, however, these books have become important references to learn this new programming language.
