June 2024

Table of Contents

Introduction

Welcome to the June 2024 Gradle Build Tool newsletter! Learn about Gradle Build Tool 8.8, updates on Declarative Gradle, the first DPE University course updates, the new Gradle Cookbook resource, and upcoming events.

From the Community

Blog Posts

Videos and Live Demos

New Releases

Developer Grants Program

From the Gradle Team

Gradle 8.8 Release

Gradle 8.8 Release

The Gradle team is excited to announce Gradle 8.8. Gradle now fully supports Java 22. This release also introduces a preview feature for configuring the Gradle daemon JVM using toolchains and improves IDE performance with large projects. Additionally, it includes many notable improvements to build authoring, error and warning messages, the build cache, and the configuration cache.

Read Gradle Build Tool 8.8 Release Notes for more information, and thanks to all the contributors!

Declarative Gradle

We’re continuing work towards the First Early Access Preview (EAP), which we expect to be available in Summer 2024. Excellent IDE Integration is one of the key principles of Declarative Gradle, and, along with the Declarative DSL syntax, it is one of the key priorities for the current iteration.

On June 12, we also published a blog post on Gradle’s Evolution based on the video interview with Adam Murdoch. Check it out to learn more about the genesis of Gradle and Adam’s vision for the Declarative Gradle project.

As of now, Declarative Gradle remains an experimental project; see its website for the context. Please share any feedback on the #declarative-gradle channel on the Gradle Community Slack.

Gradle Cookbook

Gradle Cookbook

As part of the Gradle documentation investment, we’ve just released the preview of Gradle Cookbook—an open-source collection of recipes, guides, and examples for Gradle Build Tool. This new official resource complements the Gradle User Manual, which covers core capabilities the Gradle team maintains.

The Gradle Cookbook aims to offer solution-based documentation for end users about external integrations, including but not limited to CI/CD tools, IDEs, support for languages and frameworks, and various peripheral tools. Contributions are welcome if you have interesting use-case recipes to share! Check out the contributor guide for more info.

NOTE: The Gradle Cookbook is under active development (see the roadmap item here). Its structure, scope, and links may change, and we’re working on adding more content. Contributions are welcome!

DPE University - First Month Results

We’re nearing a month since we launched DPE University and began offering free training on Gradle Build Tool, Develocity, and Developer Productivity Engineering. For example, the Introduction to Gradle for Developers course has received more than 500 sign-ups, and more than 60 completion certificates have been issued for this course.

“I found this really easy to follow and completed one of the ‘accredited courses’ in a few hours. Despite previously considering myself relatively clued up on Gradle, there was plenty for me to learn!”—wrote Ed Holloway-George, a Google Developer Expert in Android, on the community Slack. Thanks to Ed and all the other early DPE University learners who took the courses and shared their feedback!

Check out the Gradle Build Tool courses at DPE University!

Upcoming Events

Check out Gradle’s upcoming community and hosted events. Say hi to us at our booth and catch our speaking slots! We hope to see you at an event soon.

And have a great summer [of code] in the northern hemisphere!

Summer Gradlephant

If you have some news you’d like us to share in the next issue, let us know using the #community-news channel on the Gradle Community Slack or by mentioning @Gradle on Twitter/X.

Until next time!
— The Gradle Team