Book Image

Simplifying Application Development with Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile

By : Róbert Nagy
Book Image

Simplifying Application Development with Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile

By: Róbert Nagy

Overview of this book

Sharing code between platforms can help developers gain a competitive edge, and Kotlin Multiplatform Mobile (KMM) offers a sensible way to do it. KMM helps mobile teams share code between Android and iOS in a flexible way, leaving room for native development. The book begins by helping you to gain a clear understanding of the Kotlin Multiplatform approach, how it works, and how it is different from cross-platform technologies, such as React Native and Flutter, and code sharing options, such as C++. You'll then see how your team can use this software development kit (SDK) to build native applications more effectively by learning timeless concepts and working through practical examples. As you advance, you'll get to grips with the core concepts, understand why UI sharing fails, and get hands-on with developing a small KMM application. Finally, you'll discover expert tips and best practices, along with production- and adoption-related questions, that will help you take the next step in your project and career. By the end of this Kotlin book, you'll have gained a solid understanding of the capabilities of KMM and be able to share code between Android and iOS flexibly.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
1
Section 1 - Getting Started with Multiplatform Mobile Development Using Kotlin
5
Section 2 - Code Sharing between Android and iOS
10
Section 3 - Supercharging Yourself for the Next Steps

Exploring team structure and tooling

If you're planning on adopting KMP in your team, the following points may be obvious to you by now, but it's still worth pointing them out:

  • Your shared code needs mostly Kotlin and Gradle-related expertise.
  • Android teams will mostly feel natural about working with the shared code, with a relatively small amount of learning needed for KMP specifics.
  • iOS teams will have a harder time, even though Kotlin and Swift are not too different. This is especially true when it comes to a new build tool, integrated development environment (IDE), and ways of working.

Team structure

Because of the aforementioned points, you should probably evaluate your team structure and plan carefully so that your shared code doesn't end up being a huge bottleneck that only a few people of your Android team will touch; it will inevitably drive your shared code toward Android and you want it to be unbiased toward platforms.

One example...