• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Codemotion Magazine

Codemotion Magazine

We code the future. Together

  • Discover
    • Live
    • Tech Communities
    • Hackathons
    • Coding Challenges
    • For Kids
  • Watch
    • Talks
    • Playlists
    • Edu Paths
  • Magazine
    • Backend
    • Frontend
    • AI/ML
    • DevOps
    • Dev Life
    • Soft Skills
    • Infographics
  • Talent
    • Discover Talent
    • Jobs
  • Partners
  • For Companies
Home » Frontend » Mobile Developer » Getting started with Kotlin on Android
Mobile Developer

Getting started with Kotlin on Android

In this interview, Leonardo Pirro tells us how he became an Android developer, and why he decided to use Kotlin to develop mobile apps.

December 31, 2018 by Codemotion

Hello Leonardo, thanks for this interview! First of all, what can you tell us about yourself?

My name is Leonardo Pirro, I’m 25 and I come from Puglia, but I’ve been living and working in Rome for four years. I graduated from the ITIS (State Industrial Technical Institute) in San Giovanni Rotondo, then I moved to Rome for Masters in Applications and Services Development, a nine-month course on software development with a vertical curriculum.

I’m an Android Developer at IQUII, a digital company based in Rome. We operate in various sectors including sport, finance and retail. I like to stay updated, and that’s why I always try to bring the latest news to the company, in order to improve the quality of the code and the final product.

In my free time, I often do programming, study and experiment, since I’m lucky enough, or unlucky (depending on your point of view) that I love my work. I also love photography, cinema, concerts and travelling.

How did you become a developer?

I remember that day like it was yesterday. I should point out that I realised I wanted to be a programmer quite late. When I was younger, I was more oriented towards computer security. It was in secondary school, during a lesson in the computer lab where we were studying Java, creating something from scratch and solving problems, that these topics began to fascinate me. It was fantastic to find out that there are endless ways to tackle and solve every single problem. To anyone who’s asked me this question, I’ve always answered with a metaphor: for me, programming is like drawing or painting, even if, compared to pure art, it’s more difficult to appreciate because it’s less tangible and transparent. A romantic answer would be that I didn’t choose this job – it chose me. A more logical one is that I was fascinated by the possibilities for problem-solving in programming itself.

During one of our #AperiTech meetups, you presented on “How to get started with Kotlin on Android”. Why did you decide to talk about Kotlin?

I think of Kotlin as something brand new for Android developers, something that was needed by the community and all the developers who had repeatedly encountered the limits imposed by Java. As Google decided to make it an officially supported language for Android systems, the community has felt listened to by those at the top. What’s more, Google itself is doing a lot in order to promote Kotlin during events and conferences like Google I/O, which I attended this year in person. Kotlin is not a passing fad, it really offers many possibilities and increases the quality of the written code. For these reasons, I’ll certainly give further talks about Kotlin.

Meetup di GDG Italia – Leonardo Pirro – Codemotion Rome 2018 from Codemotion

In your opinion, is there a difference between being a speaker at a community meetup and being a speaker at a conference?

I think that the main difference is the more relaxed environment you can find at a meetup; conferences are bigger and more chaotic. Personally, I highly recommend the meetups for those who want to approach a technology, both as a speaker and as a user, because it’s easier to network with others than at a big conference. Also in Italy there aren’t many big conferences, while there are many #AperiTech meetups, at least here in Rome, there’s one every night. I’m very happy that the community spirit is spreading more and more in our country, giving the world of programmers new opportunities to meet and learn.

Community Management for Developers

Download our latest eBook to learn how to build a thriving coding community with no prior experience. We had Codemotion’s own community managers and some of our members list down the essential skills, practices and tools according to their first-hand experience.

Download

Coming back to Kotlin, do you think that it will become more and more popular? Does it have any critical issues?

Personally, I already consider it a standard for development on Android, so I don’t see any problem for companies to adopt it. In the company where I work, we already use Kotlin in production and knowing it is a plus for recruitment. In Italy, it’s becoming a common requisite, it’s really becoming a requirement in many job descriptions passed to me by friends or ex-colleagues, who are well aware of my interest in this technology. Before it was officially adopted by Google, the biggest danger was that the project would fail and that, as a result, you’d find yourself knowing a language that could no longer be in use, or even with an application in production, written with an out-of-favour language. The only problem you might find is that being a new language, the support community is smaller than the one for Java.

facebooktwitterlinkedinreddit
Share on:facebooktwitterlinkedinreddit

Tagged as:Interview Kotlin

UX: designing enterprise applications. Tina Rauschenbach and Janina Schulyk.
Previous Post
How to use GraphQL with a graph database and why the two complement each other
Next Post

Related articles

  • Native vs Hybrid: Which Mobile App Platform Should You Choose?
  • Kotlin Users Group – Interview with organiser, Jakub Jablonski
  • Async code on Kotlin: coroutines VS RxJava
  • Become a Mobile Developer and Connect the Virtual and Physical Worlds
  • Flutter for Android Developers explained by Faisal Abid
  • 5 Mobile App Predictions for 2020
  • Building mobile applications in JavaScript with React Native
  • Kotlin loves React
  • Facebook Hermes becomes open source
  • The state of Developer Ecosystem in 2019: the rise of Kotlin and React

Primary Sidebar

Learn new skills for 2023 with our Edu Paths!

Codemotion Edu Paths for 2023

Codemotion Talent · Remote Jobs

Game Server Developer

Whatwapp
Full remote · TypeScript · Kubernetes · SQL

Back-end Developer

Insoore
Full remote · C# · .NET · .NET-Core · Kubernetes · Agile/Scrum

Full Stack Developer

OverIT
Full remote · AngularJS · Hibernate · Oracle-Database · PostgreSQL · ReactJS

Data Engineer

ENGINEERING
Full remote · Amazon-Web-Services · Google-Cloud-Platform · Hadoop · Scala · SQL · Apache-Spark

Latest Articles

Will Low-Code Take Over the World in 2023?

Frontend

Pattern recognition, machine learning, AI algorithm

Pattern Recognition 101: How to Configure Your AI Algorithm With Regular Rules, Events, and Conditions

AI/ML

automotive software

Automotive Software Development: Can Agile and ASPICE Coexist?

DevOps

programming languages, 2023

Which Programming Languages Will Rule 2023?

Infographics

Footer

  • Magazine
  • Events
  • Community
  • Learning
  • Kids
  • How to use our platform
  • Contact us
  • Become a Contributor
  • About Codemotion Magazine
  • How to run a meetup
  • Tools for virtual conferences

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • RSS

DOWNLOAD APP

© Copyright Codemotion srl Via Marsala, 29/H, 00185 Roma P.IVA 12392791005 | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • RSS

DOWNLOAD APP

CONFERENCE CHECK-IN