- October 10, 2017 – First time we meet to talk about Kotlin.
- June 14, 2018 – We are presenting the first Milan Kotlin Community Conf.
Do you know what has happened? This language bewitched us!
Intré Guilds
An Intré guild is an association of Software Craftsmen who oversee the practice of their craft in a particular area.
It’s been two years or so since Intré has started to encourage its fellows to form groups, better known as guilds, in order to dedicate part of their working hours to learn and look into any subject that spurs interest among the guild members. The chosen subject could be anything, but it has to improve personal skills, knowledge and culture. Only this way, for sure, it will bring value to the individuals and therefore to the whole company.
Guild experience and achievements are then shared at a camp, called i3-camp, which takes place every three months, where expiring guilds leave place to the new ones.
In the last two years we have seen several subjects, from the best known Design Patterns to Augmented and Virtual Reality, passing through Programming Languages and Remote Access Tools… There are no limits when choosing a subject for guilds! Right now we have Blockchain, IoT, Bots, and of course, our guild, the Kotlin guild.
The Kotlin Guild
Since we prefer to be pragmatic, we started by learning the syntax with the hands on the keyboard. Following Kotlin Koans, a set of 42 mini exercises of increasing difficulty that lead us to discover this language. Every guild member, in turn, took the keyboard to write code while the whole group was trying to solve the Koan. It was a lot of fun!
At the end of the Koans we kept practicing with common Katas like Roman Numerals and Game of Life, using Test Driven Development approach. During this time we realised the features and advantages of the language.
Milan Kotlin Community Conference
It was during our last guild meeting, on January 23, when we were preparing the slides for the camp presentation, that Nando said “There are several community events, such as Kotlin nights and conferences around the world, but what about Milan?” After his phrase, Nando and the rest of the guild took initiative to get in touch with JetBrains and other Kotlin supporters. And that is actually how the first Milan Kotlin Community Conf was born.
See you there!