Why Kotlin?

Why so many new languages? Isn't good old Java good enough? Why Kotlin?

Kotlin is a modern statically typed language targeting JVM and JavaScript and intended for industrial use. The main goal behind this project is to create a language that would be a good tool for developers, i.e. will be safe, concise, flexible, 100% Java-compatible and well-supported by IDE and other tooling.

Kotlin is an open-source project developed by JetBrains, creators of IntelliJ IDEA and ReSharper, with the help of the community.

This talk tries to explain the reasons standing behind the trend of creating new programming languages for the JVM platform and the motivation to create one more language.
It also gives an overview of the language in its present state and a perspective we have for the future. Among other things, the following features will be covered (in the talk and/or workshop):

• Static null-safety;
• Extension functions;
• Higher-order functions and type-safe builders;
• Smart casts: Kotlin's lightweight pattern matching;
• Making Java APIs better with Kotlin;
• Developing mixed Kotlin/Java projects.
  
  To find out more about Kotlin, please refer to http://kotlin.jetbrains.org