Overview

Google recommends Kotlin Coroutines and Flow as the preferred solution for asynchronous programming on Android. Sooner or later, probably every Android developer will get in touch with these topics. This course will give you a deep understanding of Kotlin Coroutines and Flow and show how to implement the most common use cases for Android applications.This course consists of two big parts: The Coroutines part and the Flow part. Before being able to use Flows in our applications, we first need a solid understanding of Coroutines. That's why Coroutines are covered first. However, if you already have some experience with Coroutines, then you can also start with the Flow part right away, and jump back to lessons of the Coroutines part whenever needed. In the part about Coroutines, first, we will take a detailed look at the advantages of Kotlin Coroutines over other approaches for asynchronous programming, like RxJava and Callbacks.Then, we will talk about some theoretical fundamentals. These include:Routines vs. CoroutinesSuspend FunctionsCoroutines vs. ThreadsBlocking vs. SuspendingMultithreaded CoroutinesInternal workings Next, we will implement some of the most common use cases for Kotlin Coroutines in Android applications. These include: Performing network requests with Retrofit sequentially and concurrentlyImplementing Timeouts and RetriesUsing Room with CoroutinesPerforming background processing with CoroutinesContinuing Coroutine execution even when the user leaves the screen. To improve your learning experience, this course also challenges you with several exercises. Learning Coroutines can be overwhelming because you need to learn a lot of new concepts. However, we are going to start simple and as our use cases will get more and more complex, we will learn about new concepts step-by-step. These new concepts are:Coroutine Builders (launch, async, runBlocking)Coroutine ContextCoroutine DispatchersStructured ConcurrencyCoroutine Scopes (viewModelScope, lifecycleScope, GlobalScope)Jobs and SupervisorJobsscoping functions (coroutineScope{} and supervisorScope{})Cooperative CancellationNon-Cancellable CodeWe will also make a deep dive into Exception Handling and discuss concepts like: exception handling with try/catchexception handling with CoroutineExceptionHandlerswhen to use try/catch and when to use a CoroutineExceptionHandlerexception handling in Coroutines started with launch and asyncexception handling specifics of scoping functions coroutineScope{} and supervisorScope{}Unit Tests are very important for every codebase. In the course's final section, we will write unit tests for most of the coroutine-based use cases we implemented earlier. We will discuss concepts likeTestCoroutineDispatchercreating a JUnit4 Rule for testing coroutine-based coderunBlockingTest{} Coroutine Buildervirtual timeTesting sequential and concurrent executionTestCoroutineScopeIn the part about Kotlin Flow, we first cover all the basics. We will answer the question "What is a Flow?" and then we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of reactive programming. Afterward, we are going to have a look at different Flow builders and operators: basic flow buildersterminal operators terminal operator "launchIn()"terminal operator "asLiveData()"lifecycle operatorsintermediate operatorsIn our first real Flow use case, we use a Flow to create a live stock-tracking feature, that uses all the available basic flow components. In the next module, we will take a look at Exception Handling and Cancellation with Kotlin Flow. In the following module, you will learn about StateFlow and SharedFlow and the following concepts: how to make Coroutines lifecycle-aware with the "repeatOnLifecycle()" suspend functionHot Flows VS Cold FlowsConverting Flows to SharedFlows with the "shareIn()" operatorConverting Flows to StateFlows with the "stateIn()" operatorWhen to use SharedFlow and when to use StateFlowNext, you will learn about Channels, how they differ from hot flows, and when they are useful in Android Applications.By the end of this course, you will have a fundamental understanding of Kotlin Coroutines and Flows and be able to write readable and maintainable, asynchronous, and multithreaded Android Applications.

Skills

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