Hello all, A question that I and most probably, other past/potential mentors are usually asked by the prospective GSoC students is whether we have any imminent plan to switch the codebase to Kotlin.
I'm initiating this thread so that everyone can provide suggestions and we can come to a consensus. The factors we should consider while discussing such a thing are: - *Feasibility* - We are using several dependencies and we have to make sure that all of them are compatible with Kotlin or we have suitable alternatives. - *Interoperability* - As such a thing could take significant man-hours and getting every feature to working in the new codebase may take more than a season (considering most of the development happening during GSoC time - calling it a season), the new code should work seamlessly with the existing one and we should not be stuck till the whole codebase is ported which may take more than a season. - *Efforts* - We have a very limited workforce as most of he the volunteers and members are occupied with full-time jobs. So, we should make sure that the work is indeed completed in an acceptable time duration. - *Priority* - To keep such a task on a higher priority than some new feature which would actually help the community won't be worth it. I request all the veterans and members of the community with substantial experience with Kotlin to give their views considering the above-mentioned criteria and some other criterium which is not listed already. My Views: My opinion is that we should go ahead only if we can have an environment where development can be done in Kotlin as well as in Java. It'll allow more people to contribute but switching from Java to Kotlin - that'll restrict people from contributing as most of the college/schools would still be teaching Java and not Kotlin and hence, decreasing the number of volunteers. Thanks -- Sincerely Tarun Mudgal
