The Gradle build tool is one of the most successful projects in the Groovy ecosystem because it addresses a difficult problem – every major build is a custom build. Gradle builds are written in Groovy, so the full power of the language is available if you need it. Gradle supports Maven project structure and repositories and uses Ivy dependency management without being bound by their normal constraints. With major systems like Grails, Hibernate, and the Spring Framework moving to Gradle, this is a technology worth taking the time to understand.

This talk will cover the basics of Gradle both through simple examples and by examining the build files for major open source projects.