For simple use cases, sure. But when you start to have to build artifacts with different dependency versions, JDK versions, architectures, etc., then this complexity has to be somewhere, and Gradle can do that for you if you know how to wield it.
We are a large enterprise shop with many projects being built on different machines, architectures, technologies, etc. We took the time to become decent in Gradle, and it works great for us.
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But isn't the key job of a build system to 'just work'.
Ie it's executable documentation of how to build/test the software.
ie really shouldn't need constant maintenance, especially if the code hasn't changed.
For simple use cases, sure. But when you start to have to build artifacts with different dependency versions, JDK versions, architectures, etc., then this complexity has to be somewhere, and Gradle can do that for you if you know how to wield it.
We are a large enterprise shop with many projects being built on different machines, architectures, technologies, etc. We took the time to become decent in Gradle, and it works great for us.
No. Builds are not simple