Programming language design in its modern sense is not limited to syntax nor to execution semantics: the presence of IDEs, build systems and other tools opens up new dimensions in the design space. This talk is about interesting problems we are facing while working on the Kotlin programming language at JetBrains. Kotlin is a statically typed language compiled to JVM byte codes and JavaScript. It is intended for industrial use and focused on readability, safety, performance and interoperability with existing ecosystems (including Java). We will concentrate on the problems that, in our opinion, deserve more attention from the research communities than they actually get.

Andrey, the lead language designer for Kotlin, began his career at Borland, where he worked on language implementations for MDA support. After spending a few years as a college teacher, he joined JetBrains in 2010 to develop the Kotlin programming language. He represented JetBrains in the JCP expert group for JSR 335, “Project Lambda”.