21
AleCx04
4y

sooooooooo for my current graduate class we were to use the MVC pattern to build an IOS application(they preferred it if we did an IOS application) or if you didn't have an Apple computer: an Android application.

The thing is, they specified to use Java, while in their lectures and demos they made a lot of points for other technologies, hybrid technologies, such as React Cordova, all that shit, they even mentioned React Native and more. But not one single mention of Kotlin. Last time I tried my hand at Android development was way before Kotlin, it was actually my first major development job: Mobile development, for which we used Obj C on the IOS part and well, Java on the Android part.

As some of you might now, I rarely have something bad to say about a tech stack(except for VBA which I despise, but I digress) and I love and use Java at work. But the Android API has always seem unnecessarily complex for my taste, because of that, when I was working as a mobile development I dreaded every single minute in which I had to code for Android, Google had a great way to make people despise Java through their Android API. I am not saying it is shit, I am not saying it is bad, I just-dont-like-it.

Kotlin, proves a superior choice in my humble opinion for Android development, and because the language is for retards, it was fairly easy for me to pick it up in about 2 hours. I was already redesigning some of my largest Spring applications using half the code and implemented about 80% of the application's functionality in less than 3 hours(login, fragment manipulation, permissions, bla bla) and by that time I started to wonder if the app built on Kotlin would be ok. And why not? If they specifically mentioned and demonstrated examples using Swift, then surely Kotlin would be fine no? Between Kotlin and Java it is easy to see that kotlin is more similar to Swift than Java. So I sent an email. Their response: "I am sorry, but we would much rather you stick with the official implementations for Android, which in this case is Java for the development of the application"

I was like 0.o wat? So I replied back sending links and documentation where Google touted Kotlin as the new and preferred way to develop Android applications, not as a second class citizen of the platform, but as THE preferred stack. Same response.

Eventually one of the instructors reflected long enough on it to say that it was fine if I developed the application in Kotlin, but they advised me that since they already had grading criteria for the Java program I had to redo it in Java. It did not took me long really, once I was finished with the Kotlin application I basically rewrote only a couple of things into Java.

The end result? I think that for Android I still greatly prefer Kotlin. Even though I am not the biggest fan of Kotlin for anything else, or as my preferred language in the JVM.

I just.......wish....they would have said something along the lines of: "Nah fam please rewrite that shit for Java since we don't have grading criterias in place for Kotlin, sorry bruh, 10/10 gg tho" instead of them getting into an email battle with me concerning Kotlin being or not being the language to use in Android. It made me feel that they effectively had no clue what they were talking about and as such not really capable of taking care of students on a graduate level program.

Made me feel dirty.

Comments
  • 7
    Oh wow college teachers having a general disconnection from the real word, being stuck 10 years in the past with no real hard skills, praying the state doesnt defund their college because they are not even intern level acting like they are hot shit teaching crap to easily impressionable students? Almost as if SOMEONE said this was the case way back hmmm?
  • 3
    I'm a little shocked that's graduate level course work. Not at all shocked about the professor's response though; those who can, do; those who can't, teach.
  • 2
    @yellow-dog because its one thing to consider that some professors are absolute idiots, the other is to consider that ALL of them are and that the degree itself was worthless. That was my main discussion point back then, I still very much believe that there is value(a lot actually) in academic coursework, sin it exposes people to things they would otherwise never touched.
  • 2
    @SortOfTested seems like a pretty reasonable assignment to me: set up the api environment with docker for testing purposes. Completely generate the application with a given set of requirements basing the progress on agile methodologies(sprints etc) maintain proper separation of concerns and structure through the MVC pattern, secured login/logout functionalities with authorization and authentication etc etc in one week. Specially considering that most of the other students in the class might never had touched mobile development. I would say that the lectures were good enough to prepare them for the bare minimum details of the application and made it as "real world scenario" as possible. Considering how a lot of people go through life doing vanilla php with just jquery as their frontend "target" I would say that this was sophisticated enough to be a graduate level simple assignment. They deduct massive points from fuckups also. Which I dig.
  • 1
    @AleCx04
    I guess it's just a difference in methodologies. We had very little "real world" in my graduate program, it was all deep dives into the math and structure behind languages, programming-machine interfaces and CS, and research team duties. The build application type of work was undergrad.

    Of course it was also many years ago 😆
  • 1
    @SortOfTested oh wow shit has changed haha most of thise things I saw in my undergraduate classes. It kinda makes more sense to be the way you mention since normally people should be doing higher research levek coursework down the line after the undergraduate
  • 1
    @yellow-dog nah it's not all of them mate.

    Literally a few hours after he told me this story I got an email from a uni I'm looking at going to for grad school saying that they added an Android development class to their catalog and it featured Kotlin.
  • 0
    Another java vs kotlin argument... Okay!
  • 2
    @GiddyNaya not really no. It was more of a rant against the wrong mentally concerning academic staff, might want ro read it again.
  • 1
    I see opportunities here :) Why not suggest to write the course grading criteria for Kotlin and propose it to your teachers? That way you help future course followers to be able to do it in Kotlin and you contribute to the course, therefore the quality and the relevance of the course would be more :)
  • 3
    @p0s1x what, like, for free? fuuuuuuck no. I barely have time for myself to do anything, let alone to leave this shit for a bunch of morons I don't know for free.

    It is a good idea, had I been a more noble person. But I am a greedy fuck that likes money far too much for it man :(
  • 0
    @AleCx04 haha oh man what have they done to you. i Agree that it is a noble idea :)
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