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That's a nice sentiment, but you really can't be an engineer in any kind of software development without having an understanding how your software is put together. Especially if you want to do things like builds for different flavors, customize branding or do any kind of changes in the build process.

Some minimal standard of competence and knowledge is required for you to basically function.

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I agree. I was talking about the needless complexity of Gradle and Groovy in handling a build, not the inherent complexity of a build itself. Builds can easily be described declaratively, as shown by Make and Ant, and this was a major step forward for the science of build descriptions. Gradle and Groovy, however, provide a procedural description of builds, with the apparent intention of generating technical debt in user IT land, and then selling them consultancy services and courses.

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