Learn how to implement Gradle, the Groovy-based build automation system that can help you build and test software projects, from small to large. In this video course, Java consultant Ken Kousen demonstrates Groovy's relationship to Java, and takes a close look at POGOs—plain old Groovy objects—and how they define properties, access modifiers, and generate methods. You’ll learn all of the Groovy mechanisms in a simple, non-trivial application.

Kousen provides detailed Gradle examples, including the Spock testing framework, an overview of the Gradle builds for the Spring framework, and the default Gradle build for Android projects.

In this video course, you’ll explore:

• Java project builds: specify repositories and dependencies, execute the build, and view the test output
• Groovy project builds: learn additional tasks and dependencies for Groovy
• Custom tasks: list available build tasks, define custom tasks, and insert them into the directed acyclic graph
• Conditional task execution: understand how to control if and when to execute tasks with incremental builds
• Multi-project builds: learn how Gradle defines subdirectories as separate projects
• Miscellaneous features: generate a Gradle wrapper for clients who do not have it, and run the Gradle daemon to improve performance
• Plugins: get a survey of Gradle plugin architecture and learn how to use the application, war, Gretty, and IDE plugins

Ken Kousen, president of Kousen IT, Inc., is a technical trainer, mentor, and consultant in all areas related to Java, specializing in Android, Spring, Hibernate/JPA, Groovy, and Grails. He is the author of Making Java Groovy (Manning) and the upcoming O’Reilly book, Gradle for Android.