New Release of the Build Automation Tool Also Improves Support for Apple Silicon Systems
Gradle 7.0, the latest release of the popular software build tool leveraged in Android development and elsewhere, offers faster incremental builds as well as support for Java 16.
With the Gradle 7.0 release, introduced April 9, file system watching is enabled by default, making incremental builds quicker. The capability was introduced as an opt-in feature in Gradle 6.5 and deemed production-ready in Gradle 6.7. When file system watching is enabled, Gradle maintains what it has learned about the file system in memory between builds and skips reading from the file system on each build.
With an incremental build, input and output files are checked to find out what needs to be rebuilt. This capability usually saves a lot of time but adds some I/O overhead, which can be noticeable in large projects when not much has changed since the prior build. By maintaining a cache of file system changes, Gradle 7.0 reduces the I/O overhead and speeds up build times.
Gradle 7.0 also introduces support for Java 16, which was released in March. This includes support for Java 16 language features, APIs, and the Java Development Kit. Developers can now use the latest Java features in their Gradle projects, ensuring compatibility and leveraging new Java capabilities.
In addition to incremental build improvements and Java 16 support, Gradle 7.0 enhances support for Apple Silicon systems. This makes Gradle more efficient on the latest Mac hardware, providing better performance and reliability for developers using Apple’s M1 chip.
Other improvements in Gradle 7.0 include better dependency management, enhanced plugin development, and new task configuration options. These enhancements aim to make Gradle more powerful and flexible for a wide range of build automation needs. The update demonstrates Gradle’s commitment to staying current with the latest technologies and improving developer productivity.