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As Android developers we know Java and now Kotlin. But to become even more seasoned developers, learning newer languages can be a level booster.

The list can go on and on, especially if you’ve been in the industry awhile. So, when does it make sense for you to learn a new language?

When should you learn a new language? When does it make sense? How do you do it?

In this episode KG and Donn discuss the merits of learning new languages, what new languages they’ve picked up and how they feel its important for them and their careers as developers.

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How do you know if some code is over-engineered?

What does that even look like?

How do you know if you’re over-engineering the code that you’re writing?

What if you recently started at a new company, how do you know if the code you’re working with is over-engineered?

In this episode, Kaushik and Donn go back and forth on this topic …

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Kotlin isn’t a magic bullet that prevents NullPointerExceptions.

Not at all.

What Kotlin does do is force you to think about how you want to handle your nulls. through Kotlin forcing you to think this through, the hope is that you’ll avoid NullPointerExceptions. The only problem is, Kotlin has the !! operator, also known as the “Not Null Assertion Operator”. This operator basically says “Hey Kotlin, trust me, I’m a pro, I know what I’m doing … I KNOW THIS WON’T BE NULL”.

This… is a code smell.

In this episode, Donn walks through why Kotlin’s Not Null Assertion Operator (!!) is a code smell and what you can do to alleviate it.

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This week Donn talks about what pattern you should use when developing your application. Is it MVP? MVVM? Mabye MVI? Perhaps it’s something else. Find out in this episode.

We hope you enjoy …

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In this episode Donn and Kaushik sit down with Instacart Engineer Colin White to discuss a new image library he has created called Coil.

Coil is a Kotlin-first image library that focuses on ease of use, simplicity and extensibility. In this episode we ask him the question you’re probably wondering … “Why create an image library, isn’t this a solved problem already?” and then move onto the details of how the library works, and what it offers developers.

From Donn’s perspective – It’s an interesting library and gives you what you need with minimal footprint but offers you the extensibility that you’d want in the future. Its a good balance of “just enough” and “I might need this”.

Enjoy

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This week Donn and Kaushik talk to Leland Richardson from the Android team at Google about Jetpack Compose.

Jetpack Compose is declarative component-based UI runtime for Android. With compose you can build your UI with functions in Kotlin to easily “compose” what your UI would look like.

We dive deep in this episode. We talk about the background and influence React had on the project, we dive deep into some of the decisions made regarding the library and much much more…

We hope you enjoy …

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In this episode, Donn talks about public speaking and how it can help you grow your career.

He dives in by telling a story of his first speaking engagement and how he was riddled with fear, insecurity, doubt and anxiety. He then talks about why speaking can help you grow your career and life leaps and bounds. He wraps up with possible things you can speak about when starting out as well as where you can get your break into the speaking circuit.

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Marcel Schnelle joins Donn in this episode to talk about how to get your application under test and some steps to go from scared to confident in your testing process. The second half of the show they dive in deep to JUnit 5 and its new features.

JUnit 5 is backwards compatible with JUnit 4 and offers a slew of new features and extensibility points which make the framework much more appealing going forward. We’re convinced you’ll enjoy this episode and leave wanting to get your app under test – even more than it already is.

Enjoy.