> I don't hate Kotlin, it feels like Google's answer to Swift

You have the wrong order: JetBrains created Kotlin[1], and anything Google had to do with it was just adopting their language. Same story for Gradle choosing it over Groovy

1: https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin

> Can we at least agree it's weird Google is trying to promote 2 different languages for multiplatform development?

Google doesn’t promote anything. There are two competing teams with their own agendas. Flutter’s bills are mostly paid by internal usage, as far as I know. Android is mainly focused on Android part of Compose.

Multiplatform Compose, on the other hand, is mostly pushed by JetBrains to eat some of Flutter’s lunch and promote Kotlin usage to drive their IDE sales.

> Let me compare Unity to Flutter for a bit. When Unity jobs are hard to come by, I'm still an OK C# dev. Flutter/Dart doesn't offer they same freedom. Say what you want about Microsoft, but C# can essentially do anything. Including keeping me employed.

I might be wrong, as I’ve worked with .Net professionally, but I doubt you can jump from Senior Unity C# developer to Senior Asp.Net developer. Language is a small part in modern development.

>I might be wrong, as I’ve worked with .Net professionally, but I doubt you can jump from Senior Unity C# developer to Senior Asp.Net developer. Language is a small part in modern development.

I'm not exactly senior to senior, but I hopped from mid level hobbyist Unity dev to professional Unity dev , to mid level .net dev. I have a very specific niche though.

I'm very comfortable with my career.

>Multiplatform Compose, on the other hand, is mostly pushed by JetBrains to eat some of Flutter’s lunch and promote Kotlin usage to drive their IDE sales.

Android Studio is free ? Are they really making that much money off users using Kotlin outside of Android Studio ?

Android Studio is subsidized by Google and works pretty much only Android. The moment you have to work something more, e.g. some Web stuff you need to pay for IntelliJ Ultimate as it’s only IDE that supports Kotlin.

They even have Ktor (Kotlin web framework) plugin available only in Ultimate. For any non-trivial Kotlin development you need to have Ultimate.

> you need to pay for IntelliJ Ultimate as it’s only IDE that supports Kotlin.

That is so stunningly false that I am pretty sure I'm feeding the trolls: https://github.com/JetBrains/intellij-community/blob/idea/24... (Apache 2)

Right. Good luck developing Kotlin multiplatform, Ktor, Spring, anything web related or native with Intellij community.

Only for the crowd, I need point out that no one's arguing there's more Dart jobs than C#.

Re: multiple frameworks, I worked at Google and would argue I know as much as anyone does exactly what happened there, so I can't agree it's weird, per se. Handwaving, I'd say that's because the situation seems more 'certain' or 'settled' to me, for good reasons, but ones not worth getting into.

There's absolutely tons of threads to unpack in your comment, I wish we were in person.

Speaking generally, based on observation you gravitated most towards discussing qualities of a job one might or might not get:

I essentially left my job at Google for no paycheck, partially because Google x Koyaanisqatsi, partially because I just couldn't imagine having to go back to write Kotlin and/or Java day to day and being criticized either way. That being said, it's deflating seeing Flutter job listings after getting into this whole industry from iOS dev. Thing with Flutter jobs is there's tons of low priced job seeking competition that are smart as hell.

That's because it is unusually effective in environments where people can't afford a Macbook only for iOS dev, and at this point in its lifecycle, it self selects for people who get experience with new frameworks

Do you personally dislike Java/Kotlin ?

Java just feels like a less refined C# to me, but I'd be fine with it if offered a FAANG job.

I've tried to learn C++ too since I think I'd open up some job opportunities, but it's just too hard for me.

So who won, Kotlin or Flutter ?

From your last paragraph, I take your prefer to work as a Flutter dev all else(pay) being equal?

They want both implementations to compete, and then they deprecate one of them.

Thats an excellent summary, and its fair for you to assume that question has been settled.

(On a serious note), inside Google you tend to get more easily promoted if you launch new products than if you maintain existing products, so it could be tempting for the employees themselves to follow in that direction.

Oh I'm aware (deep foreboding sad voice)