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Table Of Contents
Kotlin for Java Developers
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Sequences in Kotlin represent a significant evolution in collection handling, especially for developers coming from Java. While Java 8+ introduced Streams as a way to process collections in a lazy manner, Kotlin refined this concept with sequences, offering a more elegant and efficient alternative.
Lazy evaluation is at the heart of sequences. This means that operations are not executed immediately when they are declared, but only when they are needed. For a Java developer, this is similar to how Streams work. The main difference is in how elements are processed: Java Streams can batch or buffer elements depending on the operation (e.g., sorted or distinct may need to see multiple elements), while Kotlin sequences consistently process each element through the entire chain of operations before moving on to the next.
For example, when you filter and transform a collection in Java using Streams, each intermediate operation creates a new temporary collection. In contrast...