Having spent way too much years in java I’d have to say that the build systems are really the weakest part of java. We have „maven“ (wtf) and „gradle“ (powerful but yikes) oh and “ant” (dead now)
Wrt gradle: While it’s super easy to get started, any slight modification is a major pain.
Note to other tooling guys for other languages:
- I don’t want to write in a new language just for my build system
- I don’t want freaking xml hell like maven
And don’t get me even started with Maven as a package manager. But to be honest... it’s at least better than NPM :-)
So I assume you don't like many of the popular build tools at all - Make, bazel, etc all define a custom DSL effectively. At least Groovy or Kotlin are actual languages you can learn and use for other things, not something that has no alternative purpose so is completely wasted. And their syntax is very close to Java so you have a head start on learning it.
In general the concept of a "cross platform" build tool and "not having to learn another language" are at odds with each other, for anybody who isn't lucky enough to already work in the language the build tool is written in.
Wrt gradle: While it’s super easy to get started, any slight modification is a major pain.
Note to other tooling guys for other languages:
- I don’t want to write in a new language just for my build system
- I don’t want freaking xml hell like maven
And don’t get me even started with Maven as a package manager. But to be honest... it’s at least better than NPM :-)