Update 2017-03-04: Gradle no longer has these problems.

One of the most important features of the Maven family of build tools, of which Gradle is a member, is the ability to automatically download dependencies and configure the Java classpath. The latter often is the more important part of the feature — unlike virtually every other module-based environment, the JVM is bafflingly incapable of locating dependencies itself (eg, from a standardised location as in C).

Gradle’s implementation, however, is rather problematic. Virtually every task undertaken by Gradle — including simply invoking the javac compiler — involves spawning a child Gradle process, whose classpath includes that of the user code in question. This is perfectly fine as long as the user code’s dependencies are disjoint from Gradle’s; had gradle been written without any non-JRE dependencies, it wouldn’t be an issue at all.

But Gradle isn’t at all light-weight — its memory footprint dwarfs that of Windows XP — and it has almost as many dependencies as one might suspect.

Today, we’ll be talking about how Groovy doesn’t seem to have a consistent idea of what an identifier is. It’s not a very large topic, and it really isn’t a problem, but it is a topic that nevertheless merits mention, and it allows me to introduce…

Gr- — (Javanese) Agglunative prefix, typically indicating expectation of a painful experience, often due to lack of forethought or impropper planning.

Example constructs include:

• Groovy — Adjective. Characterised by a large number of hacks attempting to make things better, but which really only increase the number of problems by an order of magnitude. “That’s some groovy code you’ve got there. I especially like how it uses the query parameters to dynamically select the class and static method to execute.”

• Grail(s) — Verb (almost always found in the singular present). To inflict suffering and confusion by means of unnecessary complexity, self contradiction, and annoying surprises separated by excrutiating waits. “It really grails me how this ‘convention over configuration’ framework requires three multi-thousand-line configuration files to run.”

• Gradle — Noun. An obstensibly comfortable, metaphorical location in which something is cradled before finally succumbing to death. “After having been in gradle for a few months, we found that the code had become impossible to update, due to library version conflicts.”