Introduction

Welcome to the April 2023 Gradle Build Tool newsletter.

This edition covers new content from the community, announcements about Kotlin DSL becoming the default for new Gradle projects, Gradle Inc. joining the Kotlin Foundation, and the new free training course on plugin development.

From the Community

Blog Posts

• How the Micronaut Team Leverages Gradle’s Version Catalogs For Improved Developer Productivity - discusses how to use conventions in Version Catalogs to reduce maintenance costs and also how to generate BOMs and Version Catalogs for others to use
• Gradle Goodness: Publish Version Catalog For Sharing Between Projects - demonstrates how to publish Version Catalogs and how others can use them
• The Catch in Using Exceptions For Control Flow - offers insights into how a Gradle Configuration Cache performance issue for Android projects was tracked and resolved
• Streamline Your Development Process With a Convenient Gradle Plugin - shows how to extract and apply common configuration using composite builds
• Gradle 8.0 Provides Improved Kotlin DSL and Build Times - goes over some of the improvements in Gradle 8.0

Videos

• Fix Your Gradle IntelliJ Code Assist in One Step - shows how to get better editor code assistance for task configuration written in Groovy (4 minutes)
• Speed Up Your Tests With One Line of Gradle - demonstrates how to speed up execution of tests using parallelization (9 minutes)

From the Gradle Team

Gradle 8.1

Gradle 8.1 has been released.

This release marks a big milestone for configuration cache, which offers fundamental performance optimization to speed up builds by caching the result of the configuration phase and reusing it for subsequent builds. The configuration cache is now stable and has undergone substantial improvements in this release.

Significant improvements in the Kotlin DSL have led to it becoming the default for new Gradle projects (see the next section).

There are many other improvements, including support for Java 20. See release notes for details.

Kotlin DSL Is Now the Default for New Projects

Thanks to Kotlin DSL, you can enjoy full IDE assistance for build authoring in IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio, which you are used to when working with production and test code. Kotlin DSL has been growing in popularity and has greatly improved the authoring experience of many Gradle builds. Kotlin DSL is now the default DSL for new Gradle projects.

When creating a new project with Gradle init (starting with the next release of Gradle 8.2), IntelliJ IDEA (starting with 2023.1), and Android Studio (starting with Giraffe), Kotlin DSL is the default option. In the documentation, the user manual and samples display Kotlin DSL first. There is also a brand-new DSL reference.

See our blog post and corresponding announcements from Google and JetBrains.

Gradle Joins the Kotlin Foundation

Gradle Inc. has joined the Kotlin Foundation as the first new member since its founding by Google and JetBrains.

Our long history of collaborating on Kotlin development dates back to 2015 when we embarked on a plan to deliver Kotlin DSL to Gradle users. Today, Gradle Build Tool is the most widely-used build tool for Kotlin and the default build system for Kotlin/Native and Kotlin Multiplatform.

We look forward to further advancing our relationship with the Kotlin community as a new Kotlin Foundation member.

For more details, see the press release.

New Free Training

A new training course, Gradle Build Tool Plugin Development, is launching on June 1st. In this course, we explore how to develop, test, and publish your own Gradle plugin. We cover the main components involved in developing plugins, as well as how to write meaningful tests that keep them working over time. It is a 2.5-hour course in which we will build a real-world plugin together, step-by-step.

Articles, Blog Posts, and Videos

• What’s New in Gradle 8.0 - provides a high-level overview of new features in Gradle 8 introduced since Gradle 7
• How Gradle Works Part 3 - Build Script - explains what happens during build script execution
• Converting Gradle Build Files to Kotlin With IntelliJ IDEA - shows how to convert Groovy-based Gradle scripts to Kotlin DSL, using IntelliJ IDEA (13-min video)

Careers

If you share our passion for developer productivity and tooling, consider joining our globally distributed team and check out our job openings at gradle.com/careers.

For the Gradle Build Tool team, we are currently looking for a Developer Advocate and Security Software Engineer. Both roles provide an opportunity to work on challenging problems and make a big impact in our community of millions of users.

Upcoming Events

• Apr 19, 7am - 11 am PT: Online Training - Introduction to Gradle Build Tool - EMEA
• Apr 20, 9 am - 11:30 am PT: Online User Training - Intro to DPE Workshop
• Apr 20, Community Event - DevOps Days: Birmingham
• Apr 25, 9 am - 1 pm PT: Online Training - JVM Builds with Gradle Build Tool
• Apr 26, 7 am - 11 am PT: Online Training - JVM Builds with Gradle Build Tool - EMEA
• Apr 27, 9 am - 10 am PT: Online Training - Gradle Enterprise for Productivity Engineers
• May 2, 9 am- 1 pm PT: Online Training - Advanced Dependency Management
• May 3, 9 am - 10:30am PT: Online Training - Configuring Gradle Build Tool with Kotlin
• May 3, Community Event - DevOps Days - Zurich
• May 4, 10 am - 11 am PT: Virtual Workshop - DPE Lowdown S3 E2: How LinkedIn Prioritizes DPE Initiatives
• May 6, 7 am - 11 am PT: Online Training - Advanced Dependency Management - EMEA
• May 16, 9 am - 12:15 pm PT: Online Training - Android Apps with Gradle Build Tool
• May 17, 7 am - 10:15 pm PT: Online Training - Android Apps with Gradle Build Tool - EMEA
• May 18, 9 am - 10 am PT: Online Training - Gradle Enterprise for Developers
• Jun 1, 9 am - 11:30 am PT: Online Training - Gradle Build Tool Plugin Development