Learning Some iOS as a Kotlin Developer

 

I would consider myself a professional Kotlin developer during the day, and this is just a collection of some notes I have taken away from the little I learned about iOS when I tried to implement an iOS app called Koddit with Kotlin Multiplatform.

Immutability and Mutability

  • Immutable - the value assigned to a variable is constant and cannot be changed or mutated
  • Mutable - value assigned to a variable can be changed by reassigning another value to it
Type Swift Kotlin
Immutable let val
Mutable var var

Best practice is to always make variables immutable by default and convert to mutable variables if you find the value needing to change. Immutable variables are very useful when working from multiple threads as it will ensure values don’t switch out from under you as another thread could have altered that value.

XCode Tips

Storyboard

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action Keys Description
Access libraries Command + Shift + L open the libraries popup to easily access common views such as labels and buttons
Open file in new editor Option + Shift move the cursor to the right side of current editor to open in new editor. Once two editors are open, you can move the cursor into which ever windo to open the file in that window.

Outlets and Actions

Outlets - reference to view in code to make dynamic changes to at run time from code

Action - reference to a piece of code that will run when the user interacts with a control

To connect a storyboard view to a specific part of code, open the ViewController file in a separate editor. Then control + click and drag to the ViewController. Then in the submenu that pops up, you should have the option to select the type of connection you want to make (action or outlet). You can also assign it a label to be generated in code. Note there is a little circle that appears next to the connection, when it is filled this indicates that the variable is actually referencing something from the storyboard. If you delete the view, you will see that circle no longer be filled indicating that it is not referencing anything.

Connecting actions and outlets