What is Gradle

What is Gradle?

Gradle is a build automation tool known for its flexibility to build software projects. A build automation tool is used to automate the creation of applications.

The building process includes compiling, linking, and packaging the code. The process becomes more consistent with the help of build automation tools.

It is popular for its ability to build automation in languages like Java, Android, C/C++, Scala, and Groovy etc.

The tool supports groovy based Domain Specific Language over XML. Gradle provides building, testing, and deploying software on several platforms.

The tool is popular for building any software and large projects. Gradle includes the pros of Ant and Maven and curbs the cons of both.

Before we move forth, let’s have a look at some reasons as to why Gradle is used.

Why is Gradle Used?

Some of the main reasons to use Gradle are:

Gradle resolves all the issues faced on other build tools like Maven and ANT. The tool focuses on maintainability, usability, extendibility, performance, and flexibility.

The tools support a wide variety of IDE’s, which provide a better user experience, as different people prefer working on a different IDE. It provides the users that like to work on the terminal with the command-line interface, which offers features like Gradle tasks, Command line completion, etc.

It is well-known to be highly customizable when it comes to different projects dealing with various technologies. We may use Gradle in several ways, like Java projects, Android projects, and Groovy projects.
Gradle is popular to provide high-speed performance, nearly twice as fast as Maven.

How Does Gradle Build Work?

Gradle builds are used to define a project and its tasks. At least one Gradle build file is located in the root folder of the project.

A task represents the work that a Gradle build has to perform, e.g., compiling the source code of the program.

You can execute multiple tasks at a time under one build file. These tasks can be dynamically created and extended at runtime.