JetBrains, the original developers of Android preferred programming language Kotlin, has launched a new free Kotlin Basics course on its JetBrains Academy website. The new course “is available for free and allows students to use all the powerful platform features while learning Kotlin,” JetBrains said. 

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JetBrains Academy, where the course lives, is traditionally a paid service and offers courses in Kotlin, JavaScript, Java and Python, with limited free trials of courses in its JavaScript front end and Kotlin courses available. This new free course serves as a precursor to the full Kotlin Developer course on JetBrains Academy, which JetBrains said should take participants about 10 weeks to complete if they study five hours per week. 

Kotlin was named the preferred language for developing Android apps by Google in 2019. Before that, JetBrains’ main area of expertise was building IDE software and Kotlin was a major change of pace for the company. Kotlin was originally developed to be a language JetBrains could use to build its IDEs, according to JetBrains VP Hadi Hariri.

The Kotlin Basics course teaches users the basics of Kotlin’s functional and object-oriented features through 10 interactive projects, 90 different learning topics and more than 300 coding challenges. Personalized study plans are also available as part of the course. 

Along with learning the basics of software development with Kotlin, students will also learn how to use the JetBrains IDE software, which the company said helps prepare new developers with knowledge of industry-standard tools. The course also makes more than 110 projects available to students that can be published on GitHub to strengthen their development portfolio “which is a must for future professionals,” JetBrains said. 

At the end of the day, the free Kotlin Basics course from JetBrains is all about giving beginners a way to learn without being tossed into the deep end or being lost on where to begin. 

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“Starting out is always a challenge, but the right approach to learning can smooth out the difficulties. We at JetBrains Academy believe in project-based learning, in which you study programming theory and apply your knowledge into practice by building working applications, one step at a time. We’re excited to bring this approach to our new Kotlin Basics track and help more students get new skills in the most effective and comfortable way,” said Nikolay Vyahhi, project lead at JetBrains Academy.

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