How This Book is Structured

This book has two objectives:

• Help you start writing basic Kotlin code
• Help you start reading advanced Kotlin code

Many developers do not need to be writing advanced Kotlin code, but developers will see fancy Kotlin syntax from time to time (conference presentations, blog posts, etc.). Even those who will be writing fairly basic Kotlin will need to be able to “decode” complex Kotlin when needed.

To that end, this book is divided into two major sets of chapters: the core chapters, and the “WTF?” chapters.

The Core Chapters

The core chapters, starting with the next chapter, will focus on:

• Basic Kotlin syntax: creating classes, functions, properties, and expressions
• Widely-used Kotlin idioms: things that are a little strange with respect to other programming languages but get used a lot in Kotlin to reduce the size of the source code

If you master the concepts outlined in these chapters, you should be able to be a productive Kotlin developer.

The “WTF?” Chapters

The remaining chapters focus on advanced Kotlin syntax, for the sorts of things that most developers will not use very frequently. Most likely, you will encounter that syntax when reading existing Kotlin code. So these chapters are organized around specific bits of syntax that you might encounter, explaining their role and use.