Why you should use Gradle w/ the Kotlin DSL to build Kotlin projects

A brief overview of Gradle, Maven & Ant and the pros and cons of using the Kotlin DSL

Have you heard about the Kotlin Primer? It’s an extensive, hands-on and detailed guide to the Kotlin language full of unique and original explanations, interactive exercises, and concrete recommendations based on experience. It will transform anyone who knows Java into a Kotlin expert within a matter of days. Check it out!

This article is the first in a series about creating a Kotlin project with Gradle configured using the Kotlin DSL. The series is written with complete beginners in mind and assumes no previous experience with Gradle, but also strives to provide references to all presented material and to leave no questions unanswered. At times, getting satisfactory answers required digging into the actual source code and, to my knowledge, this information is not available elsewhere at the time of writing. This makes it interesting to more advanced users as well.

In this article, I want to talk about why I chose to build my Kotlin projects using Gradle w/ the Kotlin DSL in the first place.