Android developers write not only in Java and Kotlin: in this article, we will analyze 8 popular programming languages ​​that are suitable for developing Android applications, tell you how much the profession is in demand and where to learn it .

Java

It is the official Android development language maintained by Android Studio and is the basis for learning Kotlin.

In general, when the debate begins about which is better, Java or Kotlin , you should remember that Kotlin is a wrapper over Java. To understand the Kotlin documentation and get help with the Android mobile app development process, you need to know Java.

The main advantages of the language:

- more materials and easier to find information;
- large community;
- the Android Studio environment is initially sharpened for working with Java;
- knowing Java, it is easy to learn Kotlin.

Kotlin

Another official and no less popular language. It is also supported by Android Studio, features syntactic sugar, and provides coroutines to make asynchronous work easier.

The Java syntax in absentia suggests more cumbersome code than in the case of Kotlin. For example, this is how an Android developer would assign text to a field in these two programming languages:

Java

final TextView helloTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text_view_id);
helloTextView.setText("Hello world");

Kotlin

helloTextView.text = "Hello world"

As you can see, Kotlin allows you to write the same thing, but much faster, using fewer lines.

The main advantages of Kotlin in Android development:

- concise code;
- supported by Android Studio;
- provides coroutines;
- in demand due to the lack of Kotlin developers.

Note The following languages ​​are recommended as alternatives and not as a base for Android development.

Python

Yes, enthusiasts managed to adapt one of the most popular programming languages ​​for Android development. Implemented with Kivy and BeeWare:

- Kivy is an open source library for creating cross-platform applications, including for Android and iOS.
- BeeWare is a set of UI tools for building native Android apps.

Let's be honest, an Android developer who writes mobile applications in the Python programming language is a rarity. Basically, this is something for yourself or projects of young ambitious firms.

If you know Python, it's definitely worth a try.

C/C++

C-languages ​​are positioned as high-performance, and this is important, especially if we are talking about something heavy like a 3D mobile game.

But it’s worth mentioning right away that you still have to resort to Java: without this language, you won’t be able to create a full-fledged mobile application. Android NDK will allow you to write in C / C ++ only part of the application, for example, a library that can be connected to the program through Java.

jаvascript

But Android development on JS is more viable.

With the React Native framework, you can create mobile apps with rich mobile UI. At the same time, such programs are completely native, that is, they are not mobile web applications. This is because React Native uses the same components as simple Android apps.

Advantages of jаvascript:

- build is faster than in Android Studio;
- to create a quality UI, there is flexbox;
- simple data transfer over the network using API.

Dart

Flutter is a relatively new technology from Google, a complete SDK released in 2018.

For a number of parameters, it is considered a better solution than React Native. Allows you to write cross-platform applications, therefore it is effective in developing Android applications with a common code base in the Dart language.

Dart is positioned as an alternative to jаvascript. It is compiled into binary code, due to which a high speed of operations is achieved. Instead of XML, Dart uses so-called layout trees.

The main advantages of Dart:

- easy to learn, knowing Java;
- high program performance;
- Hot Reload in Flutter is a fast stateful reload.

C#

Android programming using C# implies the Xamarin. With its help, you can create one application logic in C # for Android and iOS.

Schematic representation of how Xamarin works:


Source - Microsoft documentation

As you can see, the user interface is developed individually for both platforms, while the business logic remains common.

But, as with the Python programming language, an Android developer writing in C# is the exception rather than the rule. This solution is suitable for those who know the language and want to try their hand at mobile development.

Is becoming an Android developer worth it?

According to IDC for the end of 2021, the share of the Android OS in the smartphone market was 85%:



Worldwide, there are almost 3 billion devices on this system. We can safely say that Android developer is a profession in demand.
In addition, mobile development also allows you to earn on your own applications. For clarity, Google Play Store revenue in 2020 was about $38.6 billion.

Conclusions

Despite the range of languages, Android programming training should start with Java and Kotlin as the two official languages.