Tang Moying
中文

The Relationship Between kotlin, kotlin-plugin, gradle and kotlin-gradle-plugin

2023-02-25 1 min read 193 words
  1. kotlin is a programming language based on the JVM, similar to Java and interoperable with Java;
  2. kotlin-plugin is the IDE (integrated development environment) support plugin for IDEA and Android Studio;
  3. gradle is a build tool, similar to Ant and Maven, used for everything from code through compilation, testing and packaging;
  4. kotlin-gradle-plugin is the Gradle plugin that must be added to build a kotlin project with Gradle.

The details follow:

kotlin Source code: https://github.com/JetBrains/kotlin Official website: https://kotlinlang.org/ Version numbering rules:

  • Feature releases (1.x) bring major changes to the language.

  • Incremental releases (1.10.y) are provided between feature releases and include tooling updates, performance improvements and bug fixes.

  • Bug fix releases (1.10.yz) contain bug fixes for the incremental releases.

kotlin releases: Releases · JetBrains/kotlin (github.com) Overview Kotlin releases | Kotlin (kotlinlang.org)

kotlin plugin is released together with IDEA, on the same release cycle as IDEA. kotlin-plugin includes kotlin. By upgrading kotlin-plugin you can upgrade to a newer version of kotlin, and you can also give IDEA support for the newer kotlin. After upgrading the plugin, you can select the kotlin version on IDEA’s Kotlin Compiler screen. ![[Pasted image 20221106223231.png]]

gradle Compatibility: Compatibility Matrix (gradle.org)

kotlin-gradle-plugin documentation: https://kotlinlang.org/docs/gradle.html

The kotlin-gradle-plugin plugin version should match the kotlin version you are using.