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- Existing ant build scripts need to be rewritten for Gradle. It's not possible to use Gradle's dependency management features without using its build features.
- Of course, the build script is written in Groovy. May or may not be desirable.
- Gradle by far is the most modern and sought after build tool, today.
- A Gradle installation is NOT required of a grouper developer. Gradle can download and configure itself.
- Since the build script is written in Groovy, all manners of custom tasks, profiles, configurations and such can be added.
- Gradle's concurrent and parallel builds with caching and daemons can be a HUGE benefit when running builds for large projects.
- Gradle supports all Maven-like artifact repositories.
- Plenty of plugins exist for Gradle that allow integration and customization of various build features.
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Considerations for Grouper
- Build/Dependency tools must be configured to retrieve the source artifact for JARs.
- Build/Dependency tools must be easily able to create and update javadocs.
- Build/Dependency tools must have the ability to support environment profiles.
- Build/Dependency tools must have support for local dependencies.
- Consider what may be the most natural and easiest option for a Grouper contributor to get started.
- There needs to be a way for Grouper to determine the version of its JARs used:
- Can be use/reference the Maven build maintained in parallel with ant.
- Can use the JAR manifest itself.
- IDE integration is important. While IntelliJ/NetBeans have no issues with either of these tools, Eclipse may be problematic for Maven or Gradle.