Kotlin assimilating the Android ecosystem: An appraisal of diffusion and impact on maintainability

IF 3.7 2区计算机科学 Q1 COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Journal of Systems and Software Pub Date : 2025-01-21 DOI:10.1016/j.jss.2025.112346

Riccardo Coppola, Tommaso Fulcini, Luca Ardito, Marco Torchiano

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Kotlin was introduced in 2011 as an alternative to the Java programming language, promising to address many of its predecessor’s limitations and positioning itself as a better option for application maintainability. In 2017, Kotlin became a first-class language for Android application development, complete with extensive tool support.

This paper aims to empirically assess the diffusion of Kotlin in developing Android applications and to investigate the impact of Kotlin adoption on application maintainability.

We mined 2708 open-source Android applications from F-Droid, focusing on the extent of Kotlin code presence, their popularity, and maintainability. This analysis adopted a set of six code metrics proxies.

The proportion of applications developed with Kotlin, either in conjunction with Java or exclusively, has continuously increased over the past five years. Currently, Kotlin is used in approximately 40% of the projects. The adoption of Kotlin in application development appears to be linked to greater popularity among end-users and developers when compared to the applications written in Java. Notably, the exclusive use of Kotlin in projects significantly enhances all the considered code maintainability metrics.

We conclude that Kotlin is rapidly gaining ground in the Android ecosystem. This trend is likely due to Kotlin’s fulfilment of its promise as a superior alternative to Java, particularly in terms of maintainability.

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Kotlin同化Android生态系统：对可维护性的扩散和影响的评估

Kotlin于2011年作为Java编程语言的替代品推出，它承诺解决其前身的许多限制，并将自己定位为应用程序可维护性的更好选择。2017年，Kotlin成为Android应用程序开发的一流语言，具有广泛的工具支持。本文旨在实证评估Kotlin在开发Android应用程序中的扩散，并调查采用Kotlin对应用程序可维护性的影响。我们从F-Droid中挖掘了2708个开源Android应用程序，重点关注Kotlin代码的存在程度、受欢迎程度和可维护性。该分析采用了一组6个代码度量代理。使用Kotlin开发的应用程序的比例，无论是与Java结合还是单独使用，在过去五年中不断增加。目前，大约40%的项目使用Kotlin。与用Java编写的应用程序相比，在应用程序开发中采用Kotlin似乎在最终用户和开发人员中更受欢迎。值得注意的是，Kotlin在项目中的独家使用显著增强了所有考虑的代码可维护性指标。我们的结论是Kotlin正在Android生态系统中迅速占据一席之地。这种趋势很可能是由于Kotlin实现了其作为Java的优越替代品的承诺，特别是在可维护性方面。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Systems and Software 工程技术-计算机：理论方法

CiteScore

8.60

自引率

5.70%

发文量

193

审稿时长

16 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Systems and Software publishes papers covering all aspects of software engineering and related hardware-software-systems issues. All articles should include a validation of the idea presented, e.g. through case studies, experiments, or systematic comparisons with other approaches already in practice. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: •Methods and tools for, and empirical studies on, software requirements, design, architecture, verification and validation, maintenance and evolution •Agile, model-driven, service-oriented, open source and global software development •Approaches for mobile, multiprocessing, real-time, distributed, cloud-based, dependable and virtualized systems •Human factors and management concerns of software development •Data management and big data issues of software systems •Metrics and evaluation, data mining of software development resources •Business and economic aspects of software development processes The journal welcomes state-of-the-art surveys and reports of practical experience for all of these topics.