[HN Gopher] Kotlin for Data Analysis
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       Kotlin for Data Analysis
        
       Author : saikatsg
       Score  : 73 points
       Date   : 2024-08-28 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (kotlinlang.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (kotlinlang.org)
        
       | dr_kiszonka wrote:
       | Kotlin aside, what is the deal with many websites not letting me
       | zoom on mobile? (It is hard to see what is going on in the
       | notebooks without zooming in.)
        
         | bakuvi wrote:
         | I can zoom in on safari/iphone
        
         | ak1ng wrote:
         | I find that annoying as well. Luckily on Firefox Android at
         | least that can be fixed with a browser setting (Settings >
         | Accessibility > Always enable zoom).
        
           | xahrepap wrote:
           | I do the same on Safari on iPhone. Enable the accessibility
           | setting and browsers can't lock your zoom anymore.
        
           | pvorb wrote:
           | Thanks! I didn't know that setting existed and I always
           | wanted this behavior.
        
         | pvorb wrote:
         | IIRC this used to be propagated back in the early HTML5 days.
         | At least that's how it got to my personal website. I might've
         | got it from html5boilerplate.com or a similar site.
        
         | itohihiyt wrote:
         | In Firefox mobile go to accessibility settings and turn on zoom
         | on all websites.
        
       | binkHN wrote:
       | While I came to Kotlin for Android, I'll admit that I've been
       | making things look like nails so that I can use the Kotlin
       | hammer.
        
       | abeppu wrote:
       | I find it odd that kotlin-jupyter notebooks still use the
       | `.ipynb` file extension.
        
       | nesk_ wrote:
       | JetBrains wrote a really good article to showcase how you can
       | analyze your GitHub stars with their data analysis tools:
       | https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2024/08/track-and-analyze-...
        
       | jillesvangurp wrote:
       | I do both Kotlin and Python. More Kotlin than Python to be
       | honest. But I'm pragmatic. Python is where all the action is when
       | it comes to data science, llms, and all the rest. So it's the
       | path of the least resistance. And there's a great argument to not
       | challenge that and just do what everybody else does and put your
       | head down and not criticize any of that. Which is why I use it on
       | a few projects. The library ecosystem is great. Etc. Bla bla bla.
       | But the bottom line is that I don't love python. It's dreary to
       | me. Mediocre. I can't get very excited about any of it. It just
       | seems so backwards.
       | 
       | And it's not necessarily the most efficient path either. The
       | interpreter is not that fast, the language is not that
       | expressive, what passes for package management is a bad joke,
       | etc. I can work with it but I'm not necessarily loving it.
       | 
       | For data engineering, Kotlin has a lot to offer. I wouldn't
       | necessarily recommend it because it's all kind of niche. But it
       | kind of works as well. If you aren't afraid of tinkering with it,
       | there are a lot of other niche solutions out there as well that
       | aren't python.
       | 
       | Kotlin is what I reach for when I want to get stuff done in a
       | hurry. Part of that is just my limitation. It's what I know and I
       | kind of grew up on JVM languages. I'm well aware that's not
       | necessarily optimal and that that's just a bias I have. But
       | objectively, it has a lot of nice things over modern python as
       | well.
       | 
       | Kotlin is a modern language, it's a lot more expressive than
       | python. It has a a great library ecosystem. Including some stuff
       | that does not depend on the JVM. And even though it's kind of
       | niche for a lot of things I use it for (e.g. developing reactive
       | web frontends), it holds up well and rarely disappoints me.
       | 
       | People use python because everybody else uses python. That's it.
       | It's not particularly good at anything it does. But it will get
       | the job done and I can do it. But that just isn't good enough for
       | me. It's the visual basic for data science. And that's not a
       | compliment. Being idiot proof is it's main feature. But that
       | doesn't make it the smart choice.
        
         | esafak wrote:
         | Kotlin just needs some stubborn people not to use python just
         | because everyone else does, and build up the Kotlin ecosystem.
         | That's how progress is made.
        
         | poikroequ wrote:
         | I think both languages have their strengths. I love Kotlin for
         | its functional programming (map, filter, etc) and strong static
         | typing. But Python has some nice features as well, such as list
         | comprehension, the 'yield' keyword, and annotations are super
         | simple to implement.
        
         | Blot2882 wrote:
         | I'm not sure how someone could see Kotlin as more expressive
         | than Python, unless I am misinterpreting what expressive means.
         | Python has a good language features and helpful abstractions
         | like list comprehensions.
         | 
         | What makes Kotlin more expressive? I understand it has some
         | functional features but I've never seen anything dramatically
         | flexible.
        
           | jonesetc wrote:
           | The biggest thing that wouldn't be available in Python would
           | be the DSLs. Often they are not my favorite and overused, but
           | they can be very expressive for things like their charting
           | example https://kotlinlang.org/docs/data-analysis-
           | overview.html#kand...
        
         | clumsysmurf wrote:
         | Have you looked at https://www.modular.com/mojo
         | 
         | Sounds like it has a good Python interop story.
        
         | samstave wrote:
         | What about position, with kotlin language support:
         | 
         | https://i.imgur.com/SjbtX2z.png
         | 
         | https://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2024/07/08/fun-with-positro...
        
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       (page generated 2024-08-28 23:00 UTC)