What is Kotlin?

Kotlin is a modern, statically typed programming language developed by JetBrains that runs on the JVM and is fully interoperable with Java. It was first released in 2011 and became Google's officially recommended language for Android development in 2017. Kotlin is designed to be concise, expressive, and safer than Java, eliminating common pitfalls like NullPointerExceptions at the language level. It can also compile to JavaScript (Kotlin/JS) and native binaries (Kotlin/Native), making it a true multiplatform language.