Square's Leap into the Future with Kotlin Multi Platform and Jetpack Compose

Why Square Chose Kotlin Multi Platform With Jetpack Compose

Square's engineering team has long been committed to enhancing their development process. They recognized that Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose offered substantial improvements over traditional frameworks, promising to reduce maintenance costs and improve developer productivity.

Kotlin Multi Platform allows developers to share code across different platforms, ensuring consistency and reducing redundancy. Jetpack Compose, Google’s modern toolkit for building native UIs, simplifies and accelerates UI development with a declarative approach, making the code more readable and maintainable.

What Square Did

Square’s transition to Jetpack Compose was a strategic move aimed at modernizing their design system and enabling faster development cycles. Here’s how they approached it:

• Design System Overhaul: Square started by building their design system in Compose. This provided a robust foundation that allowed their design system team and product engineers to work more efficiently.

• Incremental Adoption: Due to their app’s existing unidirectional data flow architecture, Square found it straightforward to integrate Compose one screen at a time. This incremental approach minimized disruption and allowed for smooth integration into their existing systems.

Results and Discoveries

Square’s adoption of Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose has yielded impressive results:

Boosted Productivity:
Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose has significantly enhanced developer efficiency. The declarative nature of Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose makes it easier to write and maintain code, leading to faster development cycles. According to Square engineers, “It’s simpler and faster to style components. Reading the code for complicated components is easier as well.”

Streamlined Codebase:
Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose’s layout system is conceptually simpler than the traditional Android Views system, making it easier to reason about and organize code. This simplicity has led to a more maintainable and robust codebase.

Enhanced Experimentation:
The real-time previews and intuitive tooling provided by Android Studio have been game-changers. Square’s team found that the “turn-around on design changes is much faster” and that experimenting with product changes is facilitated much better and quicker with Compose.

Focus on Core Competencies:
By leveraging Compose, Square can concentrate on what makes their app unique. They no longer need to invest significant resources into maintaining a custom declarative UI framework, allowing them to focus on their UI infrastructure and unique features.

Lessons and Recommendations

Square’s experience with Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose offers valuable insights for other organizations considering a similar transition:

1.     Start Gradually:

• Introduce Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose into new projects or individual components first. This minimizes risk and allows your team to adapt at their own pace.

2.     Invest in Training:

• Comprehensive training is essential to fully leverage the capabilities of these technologies. Equip your team with the knowledge and resources they need to succeed.

3.     Engage with the Community:

• Participate in the developer community to share knowledge, get support, and stay updated on best practices and advancements.

4.     Focus on Unique Value:

• Use these tools to streamline your development process and concentrate on enhancing the unique aspects of your application.

Square’s journey with Kotlin Multi Platform with Jetpack Compose underscores the transformative potential of these technologies. By improving efficiency, code quality, and developer satisfaction, they set a new standard for mobile app development. Organizations looking to modernize their development processes can draw inspiration from Square’s success and confidently embrace these innovative tools.

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