Introducing: “Kotlin Bootcamp for Programmers” and “Build Native Mobile Apps with Flutter”
Course instructors Mary Xia and Matt Sullivan – Build Native Mobile Apps with Flutter
Udacity fosters collaborative relationships with many innovative and influential companies across numerous fields and industries, and it is through our collaborations with these industry experts that we are able to build world-class offerings for our students. Our long-standing partnership with Google has produced a wealth of valuable opportunities—from Android development programs to Grow with Google scholarships—and today, we announce our newest courses together: Kotlin Bootcamp for Programmers, and Build Native Mobile Apps with Flutter.
Kotlin Bootcamp for Programmers
At its 2017 I/O conference, Google announced the addition of Kotlin as an official programming language for Android development. Since then, the Kotlin developer community has been growing rapidly, and with high-profile companies such as Netflix, Pinterest, and Lyft already using Kotlin, expectations that 2018 will be “The Year of Kotlin” seem very realistic!
A recent report from Realm highlighting Kotlin’s adoption rate among Android app developers predicts that Kotlin will reach a 51% market share before the year is out. And Stack Overflow’s 2018 Developer Survey shows Kotlin as the #2 most loved programming language.
Kotlin has rapidly earned a reputation for being concise, expressive, and safe. Developers additionally appreciate that it enables them to use both object-oriented and functional programming techniques, and the fact that it’s 100% interoperable with Java.
This free course, now open for enrollment, offers developers the opportunity to learn the essentials of the Kotlin programming language directly from Kotlin experts at Google.
“Developers all over the world are loving Kotlin. We’re excited to see more and more developers mastering Kotlin, and using it to build incredible Android apps. Udacity is the perfect partner for us to ensure that programmers are learning the most important skills efficiently, effectively, and with a world-class curriculum. We look forward to growing an amazing community of Kotlin developers in partnership with Udacity.” —James Lau, Product Manager, Kotlin Developer Experience, Google
In this course, you’ll learn the language fundamentals necessary to start developing your own projects using Kotlin.
Over the course of six hands-on lessons, you’ll progress from learning about basic syntax, data types, variables, operators, control structures, and nullability, to learning how object-oriented programming works in Kotlin, to diving deep into lambdas and higher-order functions, and exploring inline functions and Single Abstract Method interfaces. By the conclusion of the course, you’ll be able to build your next project in Kotlin.
Udacity itself joined the ranks of Kotlin adopters last year. This post from Nate Ebel, Android Developer at Udacity, highlights why we’ve embraced Kotlin as our primary programming language, details our adoption process, explores how are we using Kotlin today, and offers great tips for incorporating Kotlin into your own projects.
“Kotlin provides a more enjoyable developer experience by allowing us to express our features and ideas using safer, more concise code. This, in turn, enables us to build a better product for our users.” —Nate Ebel, Android Developer, Udacity
This course is taught by Aleks Haecky, Training Developer and Word Artist at Google, and Sean McQuillan, an Android Developer Advocate at Google. Aleks is an experienced technical writer and trainer, whose love for Kotlin (and aquatic life!) are evident in the course. Sean is an avowed Kotlin evangelist, who has traveled across the globe to share his insights about this modern, easy-to-learn language.
Build Native Apps with Flutter
A recent article from Thegloor neatly summed up the modern mobile developer’s challenge:
“Mobile users want nothing less than great performance, beautiful designs, and smooth animation. However, to achieve this goal, developers need to create new features without compromising on quality or performance.”
As the article goes on to note, “This is the reason behind Flutter.”
Flutter is Google’s mobile app software development kit (SDK), and in this new course, “Build Native Mobile Apps with Flutter,” you’ll learn how to use Flutter to develop high-quality, interactive, native mobile applications for iOS and Android devices in record time. Since its release, developers have been singing Flutter’s praises, highlighting features such as its reactive framework, stateful hot reload, and integrated tooling.
One of Flutter’s early profile successes has come courtesy of New York-based digital design and development company Posse, who used Flutter to build the wildly successful Hamilton app. Yes, that Hamilton! In an article entitled Rise Up! — The story of how the Hamilton App uses Flutter to do more for its fans, the Posse team makes clear why they’ve embraced Flutter:
“We see Flutter as our (increasingly less) secret weapon and a strategic advantage. Our teams move faster, execute better, and have higher morale. Since we only have to build features once, the app is far more consistent on both iOS and Android with less overhead ensuring the consistency. We particularly love that the typically tedious updates (e.g., updating graphics, copy, tweaking UI elements, testing, etc.) are literally 2x faster and overall less boring and painful.”
In this course, you’ll have the opportunity to learn Flutter directly from Google instructors. The course is made up of two lessons—in the first, you’ll learn the fundamentals of the Flutter framework, how to incorporate widgets and state into your app, and how to use Flutter’s tools to enhance your development process. In the second lesson, you’ll customize your app with Material Design, themes, and assets, and make your app interactive with text input, gestures, and more.
“Flutter is a software development kit from Google that offers developers a new way to build native apps across Android and iOS from a single codebase. There is growing demand for skilled developers with Flutter experience, so we’re delighted that Udacity has created a learning path that helps Flutter developers build real-world skills. We’re proud of our relationship with Udacity, and the high-quality Flutter training they are launching today.” —Joshy Joseph, VP & Engineering Fellow, Google
Curriculum Built With The World’s Leading Experts
Udacity’s ongoing commitment to providing lifelong learners with valuable opportunities to master today’s most important skills means continuing to develop exceptional curriculum with the world’s leading experts. Kotlin Bootcamp for Programmers represents a unique opportunity for intermediate developers to learn one of the most exciting modern programming languages out there—an official language for Android development, that can also be used in a variety of other applications, from back-end development to data analysis. Build Native Mobile Apps with Flutter enables developers to build fast, while maintaining the highest standards of quality. Flutter works with existing code, and is free and open source.
Enroll today, and discover why developers the world over are embracing these amazing new opportunities!
