There are many useful things that Gradle and/or Groovy can bring you. I couldn't imagine doing our releases without most of the steps being automated (yeah we have about 100 steps too!). I agree though that while Apache Groovy is 95% the same as Java (especially when using its static nature), it isn't the same as Java. Gradle also allows you to use Kotlin for your build scripts which has some advantages but is much further away from Java.
Personally, I would rate Gradle as easier to work with when you want to do something a little unusual. But the flip-side is that Gradle allows many styles/approaches of doing things whereas Maven more rigidly forces a particular way of doing things. In Gradle, if you want to follow a more opinionated style ala Maven, I'd recommend the kordamp plugins for Gradle[1]. Having said all that, I would think that most commons projects fall right into the suite sport which Maven handles well. If the familiarity of your committers with Gradle isn't changing over time and if you don't have a particular need which Maven isn't serving, it would be hard to justify making the change. I wouldn't recommend trying to support both. It is an additional maintenance burden to keep the two in sync. Cheers, Paul. [1] https://github.com/kordamp/kordamp-gradle-plugins On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 1:02 PM Gary Gregory <garydgreg...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi All, > > I don't see mixing in Groovy as the build language helping anyone, TBH it > feels like it creates another obstacle for new contributors. The nice thing > about Maven is that it is well known and you can extend it in Java, and > Commons is all about Java, so it feels right, especially since both plugins > we've developed within Commons are Maven plugins, in Java. > > Sure, POMs are verbose but that's XML, not Maven. At this point, I am quite > productive using Maven in Commons, so I would not look forward to either > migrating or being asked to maintain two build files. > > It seems that we finally got rid of most if not all Ant builds in favor of > Maven, so, again, switching to another build system is not even on my > radar. > > I'd rather we focus on making releasing easier instead of the 100 steps I > have to do today. > > Gary > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2020, 22:23 Rob Tompkins <chtom...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > On Jul 16, 2020, at 9:17 PM, Rob Tompkins <chtom...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > >> On Jul 16, 2020, at 9:10 PM, Matt Juntunen <matt.juntu...@hotmail.com > > > > wrote: > > >> > > >> Hi Rob, > > >> > > >>> I think we might be coming towards time to make this move or at least > > accommodate for gradle builds in commons. > > >> > > >> Are you picturing that continued use of Maven will hinder development? > > Is it restricting us in some way? > > >> > > > > > > Not at all, just trying to gauge community opinion here. > > > > I’d like to reiterate that, clearly, this all may be a non-starter > because > > how closely we’re tied to maven. I just wanted to see what people > thought. > > > > > > > > -Rob > > > > > >> Regards, > > >> Matt > > >> ________________________________ > > >> From: Rob Tompkins <chtom...@gmail.com> > > >> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2020 8:48 PM > > >> To: Commons Developers List <dev@commons.apache.org> > > >> Subject: Re: [all] Thoughts on build system maven -> gradle?? > > >> > > >> > > >> > > >>> On Jul 16, 2020, at 7:00 PM, Alex Remily <alex.rem...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > >>> > > >>> For those of us not as familiar with Gradle, what are some of the > > >>> benefits? Drawbacks? > > >> > > >> So gradle is an analog of maven, in that it provides dependency > > management in the same fashion. However, the configuration is written in > > groovy (not my favorite, but indeed a Turing complete language). Clearly > > the trade off would be that Apache’s main set of libraries moves off its > > build system, and that in itself may be a non-starter (I’m ok with that, > > but I feel the conversation valuable). It seems like newer java projects > > favor a gradle build system because most java developers these days > heavily > > rely upon spring. > > >> > > >> I honestly don’t know what the right direction here is, and I’m > > entirely open minded to anything anyone in the community has to offer. > > >> > > >> All the best, > > >> -Rob > > >> > > >> > > >>> > > >>>>> On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 5:30 PM Rob Tompkins <chtom...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>> I think we might be coming towards time to make this move or at > least > > accommodate for gradle builds in commons. Let’s look to the success the > > Spring Framework has had here with gradle. That said, I’m merely trying > to > > gauge opinions here and am entirely content to stay with maven, if that’s > > what the community wishes. > > >>>> > > >>>> I’m a +1 on at least letting gradle be a part of our systems (don’t > > have to get rid of maven either). > > >>>> > > >>>> Cheers, > > >>>> -Rob > > >>>> > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > > >>>> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > > >>> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > > >>> > > >> > > >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > > >> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > > >> > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@commons.apache.org > > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@commons.apache.org > > > > >
