While Google had earlier endorsed Kotlin for Android apps development, the internet giant has gone ahead to release a new Android SDK with capabilities for development in Kotlin language.
Kotlin, the open-source general purpose programming language for JVM and Android, that combines object-oriented and functional programming features is now fully supported in the Android SDK, with nullability annotations for frequently used APIs to ensure that newly annotated APIs are compatible with existing code.
And the nullability annotations can also benefit developers using Java, the traditional language of Android development, as the Android Studio IDE can show nullability contract violations.
Google plans adding more nullability annotations to existing Android APIs in future versions of the SDK and also ensure new APIs are annotated. The annotated APIs result in warnings instead of errors from the Kotlin compiler, and requires the use of Kotlin 1.2.60 or later version.
The aim for the newly added nullability annotations is to produce warnings, which Google hopes will give developers time to update their code by the error messaging.
To get started, download Android Studio from the project website and then Android SDK can be downloaded by selecting Tools > SDK Manager in Android Studio and then, Android SDK on the left menu. Check for Android 8.+ and install Android SDK Platform 28 revision 6 with the compile SDK version set to API 28.
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