Russell started his first Kotlin Multiplatform project the day after it was possible to share code between JVM and Kotlin/Native. He is the author and maintainer of Multiplatform Settings, a key-value storage library which was one of the earliest mobile multiplatform libraries available. He loves finding new ways to connect with this community and help people and organizations use this technology.
Russell Wolf
Kotlin Multiplatform Developer
When sharing isn’t caring: Using platform-specific code in Kotlin Multiplatform
Sharing code across platforms is a wonderful superpower. But sometimes, sharing 100% of your codebase isn’t the goal. Maybe you’re migrating existing apps to multiplatform, maybe you have platform-specific libraries or APIs you want to interact with, or maybe your platforms need to do slightly different things.
The strength of Kotlin on every platform is not just sharing code, but also interop with the platform’s unique APIs. When building multiplatform apps, it pays to think not only about what code can be shared, but also about what code is better not shared, and how to move between them.
Using examples drawn from real-world projects, we’ll look at different strategies for architecting the shared and not-shared parts of your codebase, so you’re better prepared to handle those times when a platform-specific solution is the best one.