Fast Track to Kotlin Native, South Africa

We can host this training at your preferred location. Contact us!

Kotlin is a superb choice for JVM development, and now the recommended language for Android. With Kotlin Native you can bring the power and simplicity of Kotlin to platforms where Virtual Machines are not applicable or desirable. Kotlin Native uses LLVM to produce native instructions that execute directly on the target platform e.g. MacOS, ARM and WebAssembly.

In this course you will learn how to use Kotlin alongside native applications and libraries written in C, C++, Objective-C and Swift. You will learn how to generate Kotlin library wrappers using headers from these other languages. With the generated wrappers you will write Kotlin that easily calls into native API’s and makes marshalling data back and forth trivial. You will also learn how to consume Kotlin Native libraries from other environments.

Finally, you will see how this fits into the wider Kotlin ecosystem by creating multi-platform projects that target the JVM, Android, JS and Native platforms.

Delegates must be confident Kotlin developers. Prior exposure to C/C++ terminology and concepts is very helpful but not essential.

Understand where Kotlin Native fits in the ecosystem
Use Kotlin to create native apps, libraries and frameworks
Know which libraries are available on what platforms
Be comfortable consuming C and Objective-C libraries
Have confidence manually managing C data type memory
Create hierarchical Gradle multi-platform projects

Introduction to Kotlin Native

Expanding Kotlin beyond the JVM
Understanding the LLVM Compiler Tools
Platforms supported by Kotlin Native
JVM functionality not available in Native
Choosing between the CLion and IntelliJ IDEs
Deconstructing a simple native project

Interoperating with C Libraries

Working with the provided platform libraries
Importing headers from external C libraries
Making sense of Kotlin types for native data
The role of CVariables, CPointers and CValues
Exchanging string data between Kotlin and C
Representing C data structures using CStructs
Memory management via alloc, free & memScoped
Invoking Kotlin callacks from C and vice versa
Using StableRef to extend object lifetimes

Interoperating with Objective-C / Swift

Working with the provided platform libraries
Importing headers from Objective-C / Swift
What Swift features are not supported
How Swift APIs are mapped to Kotlin

Multithreading and Coroutines

The dangers of shared mutable state
Constraints on sharing data across threads
Using @SharedImmutable and @ThreadLocal
Initialising the runtime when creating native threads
Utilising Kotlin’s built-in Worker type
Consuming results via Future objects
Freezing data and DetachedObjectGraph objects
Breaking the rules using the Atomic types
Transferring object ownership between threads
Limits on using coroutines in Kotlin Native

Creating Multiplatform Gradle Projects

Choosing between the Groovy and Kotlin DSLs
The Kotlin Multiplatform Gradle Plugin
Targeting different native platforms
The default folder naming conventions
Specifying repos and project dependencies
Controlling compiler and linker options
Creating hierarchies and sub-projects

Upcoming Trainings

Join our public courses in our South Africa facilities. Private class trainings will be organized at the location of your preference, according to your schedule.

Classroom / Virtual Classroom

17 November 2024