[jsword-devel] If Gradle is an improvement would you please post your files for a JSword build?

Thu Feb 25 11:15:53 MST 2010

The main purpose of Maven is to reduce build systems to a common method, to help deter people from doing special build systems that are programmatic, to be declarative, rather than programmatic, and to have a consistent project structure between disparate projects.  You declare what you want done, not how you do it.  Ant does this partially as well.  http://maven.apache.org/maven-features.html

It seems that Gradle intends to allow the developer to build however he wants, without any consistency with other projects.  So, you pretty much have to learn how each new project you work on is built.  It would seem that Gradle is not much different than using bash.  Why not use bash?  Windows users can install cygwin, and Mac users have unix under the hood anyhow.  So, how does Gradle benefit over something like bash?  It seems like Gradle is a bit of a step backwards.  Not only that, but you have to learn a language to build your java.

What I would have liked to see, if I personally was going to switch away from maven, is something that improved upon basic maven principles, such as declarative build system, consistent project structures, etc, but was simpler in it's declarative approach.  For example, I like how ant uses xml attributes a fair bit, and I don't like maven's extreme use of elements only.  It provides for a larger build file, and scanning it is more time consuming for the human brain.  That is my biggest qualm about maven.  But, overall, it is better than ant.

Thanks.

----- "Manfred Bergmann" <bergmannmd at web.de> wrote:

> From: "Manfred Bergmann" <bergmannmd at web.de>
> To: "J-Sword Developers Mailing List" <jsword-devel at crosswire.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 9:12:22 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
> Subject: Re: [jsword-devel] If Gradle is an improvement would you please post your files for a JSword build?
>
> I don't use Gradle for JSword but for almost all Java/Java web/Scala
> projects that I'm working on. There is a Ant->Gradle converter script
> which might be of use to port the existing Ant files to Gradle.
> Yes, it is not yet version 1.0 but that doesn't mean anything. AFAICT
> it is stable.
> However Gradle got some rather large changes from 0.5 to 0.6. Not so
> much the user API but under the hood and I believe efforts are under
> way to port the core of the build system to Java (it is currently
> Groovy) because of speed issues.
> Since I don't know Maven very well I can't say if does have all the
> power of Maven.
> However it does have multi-project builds, plugin support, dependency
> management. And the good thing you can configure all this without XML
> files.
> And one feature I like very much, the build script are actually Groovy
> scripts. That means you can add custom logic, variables or methods to
> your script.
> 
> 
> Manfred
> 
> 
> Am 25.02.2010 um 13:27 schrieb avolunteer DrStovallFoundation:
> 
> > If Gradle is an improvement would you please post your files for a
> JSword build?  I looked at the first page of gradle.com.  I saw some
> nice but brief boasts.  However it is still version 0.8.  I would
> rather spend time using what promises to be the future rather than
> spend more time learning what does seem to me to be overly complex. 
> Is Gradle going to have all of the power of Maven?
> > Thanks for pointing us towards it,
> > A Volunteer
> > 
> > Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 07:52:07 +0000
> > From: Manfred Bergmann <bergmannmd at web.de>
> > Subject: Re: [jsword-devel] Doesn't Maven offer greater power and
> >    flexability than Ant?
> > To: J-Sword Developers Mailing List <jsword-devel at crosswire.org>
> > Message-ID: <460D5BA1-924B-4109-A94F-7B3028714166 at web.de>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> > 
> > ...
> > Hmm. I'm actually hoping to not have work with Maven. I used it some
> times for getting template projects for Apache Wicket or Lift and some
> other but always found a way around it since then. Maven is a monster.
> :)
> > I've come to use Gradle instead:
> > http://www.gradle.org/
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > jsword-devel mailing list
> > jsword-devel at crosswire.org
> > http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/jsword-devel
> 
> 
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