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Kotlin Coroutines: Deep Dive

Kotlin coroutines have revolutionized JVM development, especially on Android and the backend, as they let us easily implement efficient and reliable multithreading. Their cutting-edge design and features are ideally suited to modern use cases. In this book, we will explore how Kotlin coroutines work and how we can use them to improve our applications – using both the built-in support and the kotlinx.coroutines library.

This is a practical book. It shows everything with examples and focuses on real-life use cases. As this technology is already widely used on Android and backend applications, we will see how we can use it there and what the best practices are.

Why coroutines?

The importance of concurrency is growing, but the classic techniques are not enough. Current trends suggest that coroutines are where our industry is clearly heading, and Kotlin coroutines are a very solid step in the right direction. Let me show them to you, with examples of how well they help in common use cases. I hope you will have a lot of fun reading this book.

Who this book is for

This book is for Kotlin developers who want to understand Kotlin Coroutines and learn to use them in real-life projects in accordance with best practices. The book focuses on backend and Android use cases, but it also presents knowledge that can be used on other platforms.

The structure of this book

The book is divided into the following parts:

  • Part 1: Understanding Kotlin Coroutines - dedicated to explaining what Kotlin Coroutines are and how they really work.
  • Part 2: Kotlin Coroutines library - explaining the most important concepts from the kotlinx.coroutines library and how to use them well.
  • Part 3: Channel and Flow - focused on Channel and Flow from the kotlinx.coroutines library.

What is covered

This book is based on a workshop I conduct. During its iterations I have been able to observe what interested attendees and what did not. These are the elements that are most often mentioned by attendees, so I mainly focus on the following:

  • How do coroutines really work? (Part 1)
  • How to use coroutines in practice? (Part 2 and 3)
  • What are the best practices? (Part 2 and 3)
  • Testing Kotlin coroutines (Testing Kotlin Coroutines in Part 2)
  • What is Flow and how does it work? (Part 3)
Marcin Moskała

Marcin Moskała

Marcin Moskala is a highly experienced developer and Kotlin instructor as the founder of Kt. Academy, an official JetBrains partner specializing in Kotlin training, is known for his significant contributions to the Kotlin community. Moskala is the author of several widely recognized books, including "Effective Kotlin," "Kotlin Coroutines," "Functional Kotlin," "Advanced Kotlin," "Kotlin Essentials," and "Android Development with Kotlin."

Beyond his literary achievements, Moskala is the author of the largest Medium publication dedicated to Kotlin. As a respected speaker, he has been invited to share his insights at numerous programming conferences, including events such as Droidcon and the prestigious Kotlin Conf, the premier conference dedicated to the Kotlin programming language.

Chapters available as articles

Kotlin Coroutines Recipes

Let's see some recipes useful in Kotlin Coroutines projects.

How does suspension work in Kotlin coroutines?

A deep explanation of how suspension works in Kotlin Coroutines.

Coroutines under the hood

A deep dive into how suspension and continuations work under the hood.

What is CoroutineContext and how does it work?

A deep explanation of the coroutine context - the powerful data holder for coroutines.

Kotlin Coroutines dispatchers

Where we should use each dispatcher from the Kotlin Coroutines library.

Job and children awaiting in Kotlin Coroutines

What Job is and how it is the most important context responsible for structured concurrency.

Cancellation in Kotlin Coroutines

Everything you need to know about the cancellation mechanism in Kotlin Coroutines.

Constructing a coroutine scope

How we generally define coroutine scope on Android and on the backend.

Testing Kotlin Coroutines

How we test Kotlin Coroutines, including common Android and backend cases.

Understanding Flow

We will explore how flow and its processing really works.

SharedFlow and StateFlow

Known as a replacement for Subject, LiveData, and many more. SharedFlow and StateFlow are powerful coroutines classes, every Kotlin developer should know.

Kotlin Coroutines use cases for Data/Adapters Layer

How do we use Kotlin Coroutines in the Data/Adapters Layer, how do we use callback or blocking functions.

Kotlin Coroutines use cases for Domain Layer

How do we use Kotlin Coroutines in the Domain Layer.

Kotlin Coroutines use cases for Presentation/API/UI Layer

How do we use Kotlin Coroutines in the Presentation/API/UI Layer Layer, how do we create scope and start coroutines.

Best practices

Let's review the Kotlin Coroutines best practices.