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Ross Henderson
Ross Henderson

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Advice: What language to learn for mobile dev?

Hey guys,

I have an idea for an app that I would like to build, but I have no idea what language to learn to do it. I know iPhone is Swift, but would it be better to do it on Swift first, or learn it in something like Kotlin for Android and then create a Swift version later.

Not only that ideally this app would also be a website (which I could create using Oracle APEX as I already have a draft).

Any advice? I'm getting confused between all the many different options.

Top comments (2)

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

It depends on what you already know and what do you want to do in the future?
Are you a JavaScript developer?
Then first focus on making it a progressive web app and then you can later wrap it in an headless chrome tab like the dev.to app

github.com/thepracticaldev/DEV-And...

Do you want to become a native app developer?
If yes, iOS or Android?
Pick only one.
Then the choice becomes obvious, learn Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android.

As an ex Android developer, I feel that I have to warn you: Kotlin itself is great. But Android is a crappy development platform with tons of accidental complexity (not unlike the web as a platform for developing apps). So prepare yourself for a long journey if that's what you want to do.
Also the official Android docs are terrible, avoid them.

A much better resource for both iOS and Android is:
raywenderlich.com/

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scottishross profile image
Ross Henderson

Thanks for your advice.

From the sound of that advice, you suggest that a more rounded way would be to go through the PWA route?

That's possible through my route of Oracle APEX already which is good to know :)