Have a look at the function declaration near the top of both panes. The return type in Java precedes the prototype, but in Kotlin it succeeds the prototype, demarcated with a colon as in Pascal.

For example, exceptions are unchecked, and lambda expressions are supported. In general, Kotlin is readable, relatively simple to pick-up for beginners and in many ways more modern than Java.

It’s no surprise that Google’s hope is that over time, all Android developers will switch over to Kotlin. “There is still quite a bit of Java still happening on Android,” Ward said.