Overview

Objective-C

Stacks13.3K

Followers6.5K

Votes490

Kotlin

Stacks17.7K

Followers11.9K

Votes650

GitHub Stars51.5K

Forks6.1K

Kotlin vs Objective-C: What are the differences?

Introduction

Kotlin and Objective-C are both programming languages used for building applications, but they have some key differences. Here are six specific differences between Kotlin and Objective-C.

Syntax: Kotlin has a more modern syntax compared to Objective-C. Kotlin uses a concise and expressive syntax with features like type inference and smart casts, making the code more readable and less verbose. On the other hand, Objective-C has a more verbose syntax with a lot of square brackets and explicit type declarations.
Null Safety: Kotlin has built-in null safety features, which help prevent null pointer exceptions. It uses a type system that distinguishes nullable and non-nullable types, reducing the chances of null-related bugs. Objective-C, on the other hand, does not have native null safety features, making it more prone to null pointer issues.
Interoperability: Kotlin has excellent interoperability with Java, allowing you to use existing Java libraries and frameworks seamlessly. It can call Java code and vice versa without any issues. Objective-C, on the other hand, is primarily used for developing iOS and macOS applications and has a limited interoperability with other programming languages.
Tooling Support: Kotlin has strong tooling support, including IDE plugins for popular Integrated Development Environments like IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio, and Visual Studio Code. These plugins provide features like code completion, refactoring, and debugging support. Objective-C also has IDE support, primarily through Apple's Xcode, but it may not have as many features or as much community support as Kotlin.
Concurrency: Kotlin provides coroutines, a lightweight concurrency framework, which simplifies asynchronous programming. Coroutines make it easy to write asynchronous code in a sequential style, improving the readability and maintainability of the codebase. Objective-C does not have native support for coroutines and relies on traditional threading mechanisms, making asynchronous programming more complex.
Platform Support: Kotlin is a multi-platform language, allowing you to write code that can run on multiple platforms, including Android, iOS, web, and server. This is achieved through Kotlin Multiplatform Projects (KMP) or Kotlin Native. Objective-C, on the other hand, is mainly used for Apple's platforms like iOS and macOS and does not support multi-platform development out of the box.

In summary, Kotlin offers a more modern syntax, native null safety, excellent interoperability with Java, strong tooling support, lightweight concurrency with coroutines, and multi-platform development capabilities. Objective-C, on the other hand, has a more verbose syntax, limited interoperability, and lacks native null safety and modern concurrency mechanisms.

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Advice on Objective-C, Kotlin

Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

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Comments

Zuriel

Jun 7, 2020

Needs advice

Can anyone help me decide what's best for app development or even android Oreo development? I'm in a state dilemma at the moment. I want to do Android programming, not necessarily web development. I have heard a lot of people recommend one of these, and it seems that both the tools can do the job. Which language would you choose?

291k views291k

Comments

Noel

Founder, CEO, CTO at NoFilter

Jun 17, 2020

Decided

1 code deploys for both: Android and iOS. There is a huge community behind React Native. And one of the best things is Expo. Expo uses React Native to make everything even more and more simple. Awesome technologies. Some other important thing is that while using React Native, you are reusing all JavaScript knowledge you have in your team. You can move easily a frontend dev to develop mobile applications.

A huge PRO of Expo, is that it includes a full building process. You run 1 line in the terminal, and 10 minutes after you have 2 builds done. Double check EAS Expo.

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Objective-C	Kotlin
Objective-C is a superset of the C programming language and provides object-oriented capabilities and a dynamic runtime. Objective-C inherits the syntax, primitive types, and flow control statements of C and adds syntax for defining classes and methods. It also adds language-level support for object graph management and object literals while providing dynamic typing and binding, deferring many responsibilities until runtime.	Kotlin is a statically typed programming language for the JVM, Android and the browser, 100% interoperable with Java
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 51.5K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 6.1K
Stacks 13.3K	Stacks 17.7K
Followers 6.5K	Followers 11.9K
Votes 490	Votes 650
Pros & Cons
Pros 212 Ios 115 Xcode 62 Backed by apple 47 Osx 40 Interface builder Cons 1 UNREADABLE	Pros 73 Interoperable with Java 55 Functional Programming support 51 Null Safety 46 Official Android support 44 Backed by JetBrains Cons 7 Java interop makes users write Java in Kotlin 4 Frequent use of {} keys 2 Nonullpointer Exception 2 Hard to make teams adopt the Kotlin style 1 Friendly community

What are some alternatives to Objective-C, Kotlin?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.