Best Language to make Android apps

[Nettly_]

Okay, I am in a bit of a fork here. There are 3 languages I love developing with. All of the syntax is perfect (some more so than others), some are more used, some are new but awesome. I really need help picking between my android development languages.

One one hand we have Java, something I am used to, I love using Java. I find it easy to use and package Java applications both for desktop and mobile.
On another hand there is Kotlin, which looks like Android's Swift in terms of replacing what was already there (Java) but I never used it, looks good imo but i have 0 experience.
And there is React-Native, which I love using, coding in it is easier than Java for me, and I can do much more but packaging is so hard for me because my IQ is negative.

I know I can use all 3 but trying to know all 3 is hard and if one or two of them die then that knowledge is useless. I also like to keep a focus. TIA

[samcool55]

You say your IQ is negative, but you love Java. Don't be too hard for yourself man! Seriously!

Java is really not that easy (i failed twice on that one in school and gave up on it).

 

Anyway, i do know react is quite often used for android apps. I haven't really worked with it myself but the programming guys at school mainly used that when they were working on android apps.

[DevBlox]

I'm not familiar with React-Native, but React is great on it's own, might be worth a try, but if I were to choose between Java and Kotlin, I'd go Kotlin. It's not that different from Java (it runs on the JVM, so it has familiar inner workings), but it is way nicer and cleaner from what I've tried.

[Nettly_]

1 minute ago, DevBlox said:

 but it is way nicer and cleaner from what I've tried.

Okay, then I will go with Kotlin. Thank you!

[Dat Guy]

I recommend Delphi.

[Dash Lambda]

Of those I'd pick Kotlin, but if I may introduce another option I'd suggest you look at Scala.

 

I'm not sure about how widely it's used for Android development, but it is a JVM language with Java interoperability. It's basically all the best parts of a dozen different languages rolled into something totally unique.

 

I'm paraphrasing, but the people who developed Kotlin themselves described it as "Like Scala, but with better compile times and more like Java." Which basically means they wanted to make a watered-down Scala that was more approachable to people who didn't want to have to learn anything new. And, while I don't have enough experience with Kotlin to say with authority, at least from what I've seen that's exactly what they did.

 

Scala has a somewhat deceptive learning curve; the syntax is incredibly flexible and can seem overcomplicated at first, and it encourages functional-style programming, but really it's perfectly valid to do exactly what you would do in Java anyway. The reason it looks complicated is because it lets you do whatever the hell you want. Really, going from Java to Scala feels like going from legalese to creative writing.