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 prerequisites

First, let's see what the basic skills are that you'll need before starting the following chapters and the work on Dogify.

Skill requirements

The most essential tools and concepts you will need to be familiar with when writing the shared code are the following:

  • A basic understanding of Gradle
  • An understanding of Kotlin's core concepts

We've covered both of the aforementioned topics in Chapter 3, Introducing Kotlin for Swift Developers.

Also, since the shared code will be consumed by an iOS and Android app, knowledge of the following topics, although not necessary, would be good to have:

  • Android Gradle Plugin (AGP) and its Domain-Specific Language (DSL)
  • Jetpack Compose (the new declarative UI Toolkit on Android)
  • SwiftUI (the new declarative UI Toolkit on iOS)
  • Swift's Combine framework
  • Experience with Xcode

Since all of the aforementioned is very well documented with multiple sources...