lecture

Gradle

A project's build can do far more for your project than just compiling your software. There is a lot of repetitive, time consuming and boring stuff which is still done manually in many projects. For example release management, deployment, generating documentation or many other integration tasks. It is the job of the build to take this weight from the shoulders of the developer. Furthermore, if such tasks are not automated, there execution is less reliable and done less frequently. Automation is a key for getting continuous feedback on your development work. Automation also forces you to reflect on and master your development workflows instead of having them undefined and fuzzy.

At the moment most Java projects use either Ant or Maven as their build system. Yet the ever increasing requirements on project automation are often very difficult to implement with Ant or Maven.

Gradle is an open-source build system for Java and Groovy projects with build-by-convention (ala Maven) and a complete extensibility model (unlike Maven). Gradle leverages Apache Ivy for dependency management under the hood, with build scripts written in Groovy. Hans Dockter, Gradle project lead, will present the core features of Gradle, answer your Gradle questions, and explain why Gradle is the java/groovy build system of the future. You will learn about:

- The constraints of Ant and Maven.
- Frameworkitis ;)
- Gradle's language for dependency based programming.
- Gradle's dependency management.
- Gradle's elegant integration of Ant tasks.
- Gradle's powerful multi-project build support.