Kotlin/Native first tech preview: No need for a virtual machine

JetBrains’ Andrey Breslav recently announced the availability of the first Technology Preview of Kotlin/Native which compiles Kotlin directly to machine code — so there’s no need for a virtual machine. Although it is not a fully functional release yet, users can now play with the technology and look at its source code. Kotlin/Native is a LLVM backend for the Kotlin compiler, runtime implementation and native code generation facility using LLVM toolchain. It is mainly designed to allow compilation for platforms where virtual machines are not desirable or possible (such as iOS, embedded targets), or where the developer is willing to produce a reasonably-sized self-contained program without the need to ship an additional execution runtime.