Kotlin News: 1.8.20 Release, KotlinConf Keynote, Redesigned Mascot, Kotlin Foundation News, and More

Daria Voronina

April has been a busy and eventful month with many updates and a lot of exciting news in the world of Kotlin. Catch up on all the highlights in our digest.

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Kotlin 1.8.20 released

Here are some highlights of the Kotlin 1.8.20 release:

• Updates for the new Kotlin K2 compiler.
• AutoCloseable interface and Base64 encoding in the standard library.
• New JVM incremental compilation enabled by default.
• New experimental Kotlin/Wasm target.

Try 1.8.20

KotlinConf 2023: A look at the opening keynote

At the KotlinConf 2023 opening keynote, the JetBrains team made several big announcements regarding JetBrains’ recent work on the Kotlin language, along with the Google team that shared its latest news. We collected the keynote’s main announcements in a single blog post for you to explore. Alternatively, you can watch the keynote recording.

Watch now

KotlinConf 2023: Watch the recordings

All of the KotlinConf 2023 session recordings are now available for you to watch and enjoy! You can find the entire list of videos in our blog post. Check the schedule, choose your favorite talks, and view the additional materials at your own pace.

Explore

The Kotlin mascot returns – say hello to Kodee!

During KotlinConf, we announced the return of Kotlin’s mascot. We know it’s been a while since we first introduced it, but it’s back! So, please meet Kodee. We listened to what our community had to say and redesigned our mascot to create a friendly companion that people can relate to and use to express themselves. We have prepared Kotlin mascot assets for you to download and explore. Get inspired, experiment, and engage your inner artist with Kodee!

Discover more

The Kotlin DSL is now the default for new Gradle builds

Gradle has chosen the Kotlin DSL as the default for new Gradle builds! It will be the default option in the plugins and documentation. We believe this will improve the developer experience and make script and plugin development easier and more consistent. Read our blog post to learn more about the key advantages of using the Kotlin DSL for writing Gradle scripts.

Find out more

Visualizing MIDI sequences with Kotlin and OpenRNDR [webinar]

Watch the recording of our new creative coding livestream with Edwin Jakobs. In this session, Edwin demonstrates what you can do with MIDI signals processed by a Kotlin program using OpenRNDR, an open-source framework for creating stunning visuals.

Watch now

Shout-out to Kotlin Multiplatform content creators

Check out the new compelling pieces of Kotlin Multiplatform content:

• [📖Article] Generate a Kotlin Client for a Complex Web API, by Maria Krol.
• [📖Article] Kotlin Multiplatform’s Three Levels of Testing With Kotest, by Bjorn van der Laan.
• [📖Article] KMM: Writing a Kotlin API for Swift – 7 Things You Need to Know, by Evgeny Khokhlov.

See our blog post for more links to interesting content from the community.

See the full list

Kotlin Foundation news

There are several important pieces of news from the Kotlin Foundation that we want to share with you.

The Kotlin Foundation Grants Program is live

The Kotlin Foundation introduced its Grants Program for individual contributors. The initiative will provide financial awards to authors of libraries, frameworks, and other tools who contribute to the Kotlin ecosystem. The program is focused on supporting authors of multiplatform projects, as well as those looking to expand their projects to Kotlin Multiplatform. The first round of submissions ends on May 15.

Learn more

Gradle Inc, Touchlab, and Shopify become the Kotlin Foundation’s first members

The first members to join the Kotlin Foundation are Gradle Inc., Touchlab, and Shopify. These companies are well-known in the Kotlin community and bring a wealth of expertise and experience on how Kotlin is used in production and what the Kotlin ecosystem needs to continue to thrive.

Read on

Results of the Kotlin Multiplatform contest: And the winners are…

The Kotlin Foundation recently hosted a Kotlin Multiplatform Contest for all the students and recent graduates who love coding in Kotlin. We got 43 submissions from developers all over the world, each of whom demonstrated remarkable skills and creativity.

The grand prize winners of the contest are:

• Ahmet Burak Ilhan, Istanbul Biruni University, Turkey – DoGoodMobile.
• Brian Kamau Mbigo, Multimedia University of Kenya – VisioZoezi.
• Maciej Procyk, University of Warsaw, Poland – mini-games.

Read the full news

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