What’s New in Kotlin 1.3
This article will take you through the advancements and changes the language has to offer in its latest version. By Joey deVilla.
Using Kotlin 1.3 in Android Studio
By now, you’re eager to try Kotlin 1.3 in your Android projects. You can see which version of Kotlin your project is using by selecting Tools ▸ Kotlin from the menu, which will open this dialog box:
If a newer version of Kotlin is available, you’ll be given the chance to install it:
Where to Go From Here?
The first place you should go to is the the What’s New in Kotlin 1.3 page on the official Kotlin site. It contains a complete list of every new feature introduced in Kotlin 1.3.
If you find the official list of changes too dry for your liking, you might prefer Todd Ginsberg’s overview of the additions and changes that came with Kotlin 1.3. It’s got examples that are easy to follow, and goes into more detail when covering Kotlin 1.3’s experimental features. Remember that these features are designated as experimental — don’t use them in production code!
Kotlin 1.3’s biggest change is coroutine support, and it’s pretty likely that you’ll want more reading material. The official tutorial lives on the kotlinx.coroutines GitHub repository, and it covers not just the basics, but additional topics such as using coroutines for UI programming and reactive streams.
And finally, the topic of coroutines is so big that it could have its own book. Luckily for you, we wrote it! Kotlin Coroutines by Tutorials introduces you to asynchronous programming in Kotlin by applying coroutines to common Android programming problems.