Porting and/or support for Kotlin in Android Apps

[Tarun Mudgal <ta...@gmail.com>]

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