Build Automation with Gradle

Build Automation is a fundamental part of software development, it automates the process of building and packing software code. This involves automating the entire build process from compiling code, and executing tests, to generating deployable artifacts.

Gradle is an excellent tool for building automation, is a popular open-source build automation tool that is designed to automate the building, testing, and deployment of software projects. It uses its own language (Groovy) but supports Java and Kotlin.

How to use Gradle?

To use Gradle developers define their build process using a build file “build.gradle”, this file specifies the tasks to be performed and their dependencies.

Here is an example of how a build.gradle file looks like this:

plugins {
    id 'java'
}

repositories {
    mavenCentral()
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'com.google.guava:guava:30.1-jre'
    testImplementation 'junit:junit:4.13.2'
}

This build defines a java project.

One of the most popular streaming platforms in the world (if not the most popular) uses Grade, Netflix uses Gradle to build automation of its internal tools and services. With Gradle, Netflix achieved a 2.5x reduction in build time, improved build parallelism, and better dependency management.

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