Top Six Book Recommendations to Learn Kotlin in 2018

Since Kotlin was declared the official programming language for Android apps development, a lot of people have been interested in finding the best options to learn this new programming language.

In the recent time, the popularity of the language has reached new heights and gained acceptance among the developer’s community because of the simplification of its code lines.

The language, Kotlin, is considered more understandable by many, particularly when compared to Java without compromising the performance. Not only this, the Android programmer can save a lot of time as the Kotlin programs can use all existing Java frameworks and libraries for programming.

Moreover, it is also compatible with Java binary language and provides an advanced quality one-clicked Java to Kotlin converter tool. Due to these different elements, a lot of developers are looking forward to learning Kotlin language.

When it comes to learning Kotlin language, books have become the best source for learning this new and official programming language. There are various books available for students and developers who want to learn Kotlin and start using for their next Android app development project.

Six Highly-Recommended Books That You Must Read to Learn Kotlin

1. Kotlin for Android Developers

"Kotlin for Android Developers" is the best Kotlin book out there, written by Android engineer, Antonia Leiva. This book provides a complete overview about Kotlin, teaching you how to develop an Android app from scratch using Kotlin. Specially targeted for beginners, this text will help you to learn Kotlin in the easiest way, giving many practical examples throughout the book.

Recommended by both Google and JetBrains, this book is the perfect choice for Kotlin beginners with some knowledge of Java and Android Studio. With this book, you can learn Kotlin by examples as you would be developing an app from the ground-up using Kotlin as the official development language. In short, this is a very practical book to learn the Kotlin language.

2. Kotlin in Action

"Kotlin in Action" is also one of the best-recommended books when it comes to learning Kotlin. The book is written by Dmitry Jemerov and Svetlana Isakova, both developers from the Kotlin team at JetBrains.

The book, "Kotlin in Action," guides experienced Java developers from the language basics of Kotlin all the way through developing apps to run on the JVM and Android devices. It dives deep into interesting topics like building DSLs with natural language syntax and is divided into two different parts:

Part 1 — This teaches developers how to get started using Kotlin together with existing libraries and APIs.

Part 2 — This part explains to developers how to create their own APIs and abstractions in Kotlin. It also covers some of the language’s most essential features.

3. Programming Kotlin

"Programming Kotlin" is one such book that gives an in-depth guide about Kotlin. With this book, you can familiarize yourself with Kotlin and get a thorough understanding of Kotlin features. With a complete overview of null safety, generics, and many other interesting features, this book is a perfect choice for existing Java developers who want to learn more about this alternative JVM language.

Written by Stephen Samuel and Stefan Bocutiu, "Programming Kotlin" mainly focuses on the server-side implementation of the language. It will also explain how to make use of lambdas and higher-order functions to write more concise, clean, reusable, and simple code. It is another great resource to learn Kotlin language, so that developers, who have expertise in Java development, can read this book and enjoy learning.

4. Fundamental Kotlin

"Fundamental Kotlin" is another highly-recommended book for learning Kotlin. This book is mainly focused on Kotlin programming language and its comparison to Java. By reading this book, the readers can make themselves familiar with the language’s most important features and aspects.

This book doesn’t go into too much theory. It is mainly focusing on exact examples of notes and code provided. Moreover, this book is for developers and anyone who is on their way to becoming developers.

Before reading this book, it is a must that readers get some basic knowledge of computer programming, especially for Java. Short and precise, this book contains a great introduction to Kotlin for beginners.

5. Modern Web Development With Kotlin

"Modern Web Development With Kotlin" is all about web development with Kotlin language. The book covers maximum information to get started, but mostly, it focuses on the practical aspect of using the language.

It guides readers through the entire process of developing a technology-packed web application, while using popular backend and frontend technologies. Along with learning to use Kotlin to develop web apps on top of Vert.x, access databases, and test and deploy code, readers can learn to use Gradle and integrate it with Webpack, EcmaScript 6, Sass, and React.

For reading this book, there’s no need for any prior Kotlin experience, as the basics are briefly explained in the first chapter of this book. Moreover, the required functional programming concepts are also exceptionally explained.

6. Kotlin Blueprints

"Kotlin Blueprints" is for Android programmers that are already familiar with Kotlin. This book provides a complete practical guide for readers, helping them build industry grade web applications, such as Android, Desktop application using TornadoFX,  and a lightweight JavaFX Framework for Kotlin.

This book does an excellent job of explaining the importance of working with the Kotlin language in different contexts. The readers of this book will also learn to develop a social media aggregator application that will help them to track feeds and develop a geospatial web service with Kotlin and Spring Boot.

Conclusion

These are the top six books for learning the Kotlin language. These books will be helpful to both newbie and expert developers, helping them to learn about Kotlin and its top features to develop Android apps.