Understanding Asynchronous, Concurrency, and Parallelism in Android Development (Kotlin) 🚀

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When working with Kotlin in Android development, handling tasks efficiently is crucial, especially for UI responsiveness. Concepts like asynchronous programming, concurrency, and parallelism play a significant role in optimising performance.

🔥 Threads vs Coroutines: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Faster Kotlin Code! 🚀

1. Asynchronous Programming in Kotlin

• Asynchronous programming allows tasks to run without blocking the main thread.
• Instead of waiting for a task to complete, it lets other tasks execute while waiting.
• This is essential in Android to keep the UI responsive.

Example of Blocking vs. Asynchronous Code

Blocking Code (Synchronous)

@Composable
fun BlockUIThroughThread(
    modifier: Modifier = Modifier
) {

    LazyColumn(
        modifier = modifier.fillMaxSize(),
        verticalArrangement = Arrangement.spacedBy(10.dp),
        contentPadding = PaddingValues(16.dp)
    ) {
        item {
            Button(onClick = {
                Thread.sleep(5000) // UI blocked for 5 secs
            }) {
                Text(text = "Click")
            }
        }
        items(100) {
            Text(text = "Text $it")
        }
    }
}

💡 When click on button UI freezes for 5 seconds making the app unresponsive, because it called in the Main Thread.

Asynchronous Code using Coroutines

@Composable
fun BlockFreeUIThroughCoroutines(
    modifier: Modifier = Modifier
) {
    val scope = rememberCoroutineScope()
    LazyColumn(
        modifier = modifier.fillMaxSize(),
        verticalArrangement = Arrangement.spacedBy(10.dp),
        contentPadding = PaddingValues(16.dp)
    ) {
        item {
            Button(onClick = {
                scope.launch {
                    delay(5000)
                }
            }) {
                Text(text = "Click")…