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

• The elephant in the room: How to update Gradle in your Android project correctly by Ed Holloway-George
• Debugging dependencies in Gradle by Katie Barnett
• Gradle’s Evolution - A Conversation with Adam Murdoch by Laura Kassovic
• Road to Gradle 9 with Louis Jacomet by Oleg Nenashev

Videos and Live Demos

• New Gradle Intro Video series by Sebastian Sellmair: Gradle tasks and configurations, introduction to Kotlin Gradle Plugin, and more
• The Art of Humor in Tech Writing & Tackling Gradle Warnings. Tales From the Jar Side by Ken Kousen
• Boosting Windows builds with Dev Drive, Build Caching, and Dev Containers - Interview with Julien Dubois at Devoxx France.
• Google Summer of Code with Kotlin Foundation interview with Ksenia Shneyveys and Oleg Nenashev at KotlinConf 2024

New Releases

• JVM Dependency Conflict Resolution Plugins v2.1.1 enables you to configure global consistent resolution for multi-project builds, which ensures that the same versions of dependencies are used across classpaths of a multi-project Java build. Read More.
• IntelliJ Platform Gradle Plugin 2.0.0-beta has had a few more releases, the most recent being beta7. Check out the changelog here.

Developer Grants Program

• The Kotlin Foundation has announced its Grants Program to enhance the Kotlin ecosystem and facilitate sustainable development. Developer tools are within the scope. Applications for Kotlin-focused Gradle plugins and integrations are welcome! The deadline for submissions is June 25.

From the Gradle Team

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.

• We released a new version of the experimental Declarative Gradle plugins - v0.1.2. This version includes Android support improvements, new Swift software types, and an adaptation of the Now in Android demo to the new syntax. See the full changelog here.
• The latest Android Studio 2024.1.2 Nightly supports code completion and syntax highlighting for Declarative Gradle files (*.dcl). To experiment with Gradle Features and get all the IDE capabilities, follow the Android Studio Setup Guidelines.
• Declarative Gradle Mutations DSL, a solution for modifying and refactoring the *.dcl Gradle definitions, has reached a new milestone and is now ready for feedback! Read the announcement from Paul Merlin for more information
• We extended Gradle’s Tooling API to support Declarative Gradle analysis in IDEs and developer tools. This API is not yet ready for production use.

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

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!