Kotlin’s Coroutine 101

How to achieve scalable Asynchronous Programming

By : Javentira Lienata (Android Developer at Bukalapak)

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 HELLO!
I am Javentira Lienata one of Bukalapak’s Android Devs
I am here because sharing is caring.

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 Career History

● AnalisaDaily.com Web Developer ( 2015 - 2016 )

● AjoMedan.com (Daily Deals) Managing Director ( 2015 - 2016 )

● Paprika MultiMedia Web Developer ( 2016 )

● Paprika MultiMedia Mobile Apps Developer Java and React Native ( 2016 - 2017 )

● Bukalapak Mobile Apps Developer ( 2017 - Present )

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 Agenda

● Introduction
○ What is Coroutine?
○ Why Coroutine?

● Basic and Practices

○ Suspend Functions
○ Coroutine Builder
○ Job
○ Coroutine Dispatcher
○ Structured Concurrency
○ Coroutine Scope

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Introduction
What is Coroutine?

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 What is Coroutine?

● The Kotlin team defines coroutines as “lightweight threads”

● Coroutine is similar to thread

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 Coroutine Vs Thread

Similarity :

- Both are sequence of instructions

- Multiple Coroutines or Threads can be executed concurrently
- Multiple Coroutines or Threads share resources such as memory

Difference :

- Coroutine = lightweight Thread

- Coroutines run in a Thread

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 Coroutine Vs Thread

Similarity :

- Both are sequence of instructions

- Multiple Coroutines or Threads can be executed concurrently
- Multiple Coroutines or Threads share resources such as memory

Difference :

- Coroutine = lightweight Thread

- Coroutines run in a Thread
Thread

Coroutines

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 What is Coroutine?

● The Kotlin team defines coroutines as “lightweight threads”

● Coroutine is similar to thread

● Thread-independent and Suspendable subroutine(subprogram) which can call

each-other

● An approach to Asynchronous Programming

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Introduction
Why Coroutine?

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 Why Coroutine?

● Long Blocking task should be executed asynchronously

● Possible solutions:
- Threading
- Callbacks
- Futures / Promises
- Reactive Extensions

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 Why Coroutine?

● Long Blocking task should be executed asynchronously

● Possible solutions:
- Threading ( expensive )
- Callbacks
- Futures / Promises
- Reactive Extensions

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 Why Coroutine?

● Long Blocking task should be executed asynchronously

● Possible solutions:
- Threading ( expensive )
- Callbacks ( difficult to understand, callback hell, can’t handle exception )
- Futures / Promises
- Reactive Extensions

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Why Coroutine?

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 Why Coroutine?

● Long Blocking task should be executed asynchronously

● Possible solutions:
- Threading ( expensive )
- Callbacks ( difficult to understand, callback hell, can’t handle exception )
- Futures / Promises
- Reactive Extensions

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 Why Coroutine?

● Long Blocking task should be executed asynchronously

● Possible solutions:
- Threading ( expensive )
- Callbacks ( difficult to understand, callback hell, can’t handle exception )
- Futures / Promises ( easier than callback, but still can’t handle leak? )
- Reactive Extensions

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 Why Coroutine?

● Long Blocking task should be executed asynchronously

● Possible solutions:
- Threading ( expensive )
- Callbacks ( difficult to understand, callback hell, can’t handle exception )
- Futures / Promises ( easier than callback, but still can’t handle leak? )
- Reactive Extensions ( steep learning curve, coroutines are easier to understand )

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Basic and Practices
Suspend Function?

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 Suspend Functions

● Marked with suspend modifier

● Suspend the execution of the code without blocking the current thread of execution

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 Suspend Functions

● Marked with suspend modifier

● Suspend the execution of the code without blocking the current thread of execution

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Suspend Functions

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Basic and Practices
Coroutine Builder

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 Coroutine Builder

1 2
launch async

● Fire and forget ● Fire and gives result

● Doesn’t have any result ● Returns Deferred
● Returns Job

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runBlocking
● Blocks current thread

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Coroutine Builder

launch

async

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 Coroutine Builder

runBlocking

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Basic and Practices
Job & Deferred

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Job

Job Deferred

● Cancelable thing ● Implement Job

● Has a life-cycle ● Light-weight non-blocking
● Destroys when its future
complete ● await()to wait the result

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Basic and Practices
Coroutine Dispatcher

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 Coroutine Dispatcher

● Determines what thread or threads the corresponding coroutine uses for its execution.
○ Confine (restrict) coroutine execution to a specific thread
○ Dispatch it to a thread pool
○ Or let it run unconfined (unrestricted)

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 Coroutine Dispatcher

1 2
Dispatcher.Default Dispatcher.IO
● Used by default in all standard builder ● Uses a shared pool of on-demand
● Uses common pools of shared bg created threads
thread ● Used for IO tasks

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Dispatcher.Unconfined Dispatcher.Main
● Unrestricted to any specific thread or ● Confined to the Main thread operating
pool with UI objects
● Shouldn’t be used normally in code ● Should add corresponding artifact

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 Coroutine Dispatcher

5 6
newSingleThreadContext newFixedThreadPoolContext
● To create new private single-threaded ● To create private thread pool of fixed
coroutine context. size.

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asCoroutineDispatcher
● Extension function to convert Executor
to dispatcher.

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Coroutine Dispatcher

Notes :

● Launch and async accept optional dispatcher

● Launch(Dispatchers.Default) { … } uses the same dispatcher as
GlobalScope.launch { … }

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Coroutine Dispatcher

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Coroutine Dispatcher

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Coroutine Dispatcher

The second println operation prints kotlinx.coroutines.DefaultExecutor because delay suspends the coroutine using the
default scheduler.

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Basic and Practices
Structured Concurrencies

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 Structured Concurrencies

● Coroutines are light weight, How about run all business logic/code using
GlobalScope.launch?

● New Problem:
○ It still consumes some memory resources while it runs.
○ Leak!!
○ What if the code in the coroutine hangs?

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 Structured Concurrencies

Solution 1
Store the job, and cancel it on certain lifecycle

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 Structured Concurrencies

Solution 1
Store the job, and cancel it on certain lifecycle

Well… Don’t you think it’s too complicated?

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 Structured Concurrencies

Well that’s where Structured Concurrencies in Coroutines comes in handy. How?

By Using….

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Basic and Practices
Coroutine Scope

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 Coroutine Scope

Solution 2
Use Coroutine Scope in some local Scope like UI Element with well defined lifecycle

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 Coroutine Scope

● We can define scope for each coroutine

● Every coroutine builder is an extension on CoroutineScope

● CoroutineScope provides properties like coroutineContext and it is a set of various

elements like Job of the coroutine and its dispatcher

● GlobalScope -> CoroutineScope with a lifetime of the whole application.

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Jadi apa saja manfaat Coroutines?

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 Jadi apa saja manfaat Coroutines?

● Concurrency tanpa callback hell dan branching paths

● Suspend Function akan selalu aman dipanggil, biarpun dari main thread

● Dispatcher bisa memproses ribuan job, no problem.

● Coroutine Scope menjaga tidak ada job yg leak

● Better Concurrency -> faster & efficient app

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Resources Link

- https://proandroiddev.com/how-to-make-sense-of-kotlin-coroutines-b666c7151b93
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOjq4OIWKqM
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXwuYykIxbk
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT2gHPQ4Z1Q
- credits to Wahid Nur Rohman ( Android Developer at Bukalapak )
- credits to Andika Pratama ( Android Developer at Bukalapak )

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THANKS!
and
Have A Great Kotlin!

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