Kotlin vs. Java: A Coexistence Story

When Kotlin first came out, I thought it was just a fad. But after Google made it first-class for Android, and I saw my colleagues writing less boilerplate, I gave it a shot. Honestly, I fell in love with data classes and null safety. How many times have I gotten a `NullPointerException` in Java? Too many. Kotlin forces you to handle nullability at compile time. That said, I haven’t abandoned Java. In the backend world, especially with huge enterprise systems, Java is still the lingua franca. The good news is, they interoperate perfectly. I’ve been migrating new microservices to Kotlin while keeping the core libraries in Java. It’s the best of both worlds. If you’re a Java developer, learning Kotlin will make you appreciate the features Java is slowly adopting, like pattern matching and records.