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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Build Automation
  4. Java Build Tools
  5. Gradle vs SVN (Subversion)

Gradle vs SVN (Subversion)

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Gradle
Gradle
Stacks24.3K
Followers9.8K
Votes254
GitHub Stars18.1K
Forks5.0K
SVN (Subversion)
SVN (Subversion)
Stacks791
Followers629
Votes43
GitHub Stars614
Forks188

Gradle vs SVN (Subversion): What are the differences?

Introduction

In the world of software development, tools like Gradle and SVN (Subversion) play vital roles in managing code and project versions. Both serve different purposes and have distinct features that make them unique.

  1. Language: Gradle is a build automation tool that uses Groovy and Kotlin as scripting languages, providing flexibility and ease of use in configuring builds. On the other hand, SVN is a version control system that uses Apache Subversion as its backend, enabling developers to track changes in their codebase effectively.

  2. Workflow: Gradle focuses on the build process, allowing developers to define tasks and dependencies to automate the compilation, testing, and deployment of their projects. SVN, however, concentrates on version control, enabling developers to manage code changes, branching, and merging efficiently within a centralized repository.

  3. Scalability: Gradle is designed to scale with large projects, providing support for multi-module builds and dependency management across complex systems. In contrast, SVN is better suited for smaller to medium-sized projects due to its centralized nature, which can lead to performance issues with extensive codebases.

  4. Branching and Merging: Gradle's branching and merging capabilities are limited compared to version control systems like SVN, as its primary focus is on automating the build process rather than managing code versions. SVN, with its robust branching and merging features, allows developers to work on separate features concurrently and integrate changes seamlessly.

  5. Collaboration: Gradle promotes collaboration through its plugin ecosystem and integration with tools like Jenkins for continuous integration. SVN, on the other hand, facilitates collaboration through features like locking files to prevent conflicts and enabling developers to work on the same codebase concurrently with proper version control.

  6. Performance: In terms of performance, Gradle is known for its speed and efficiency in building projects with incremental builds and parallel execution. SVN, while reliable for version control, may experience slowdowns in operations like large commits or updates due to its centralized architecture.

In Summary, Gradle and SVN serve distinct purposes in software development, with Gradle focusing on build automation and SVN specializing in version control. Each tool has its strengths and limitations, making it essential for developers to choose the right tool based on their project requirements.

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Advice on Gradle, SVN (Subversion)

Kamaldeep
Kamaldeep

CEO at Zhoustify Agency

Nov 13, 2020

Decided

SVN is much simpler than git for the simple stuff (checking in files and updating them when everyone's online), and much more complex than git for the complicated stuff (branching and merging). Or put another way, git's learning curve is steep up front, and then increases moderately as you do weird things; SVN's learning curve is very shallow up front and then increases rapidly.

If you're storing large files, if you're not branching, if you're not storing source code, and if your team is happy with SVN and the workflow you have, I'd say you should stay on SVN.

If you're writing source code with a relatively modern development practice (developers doing local builds and tests, pre-commit code reviews, preferably automated testing, preferably some amount of open-source code), you should move to git for two reasons: first, this style of working inherently requires frequent branching and merging, and second, your ability to interact with outside projects is easier if you're all comfortable with git instead of snapshotting the outside project into SVN.

83.3k views83.3k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Gradle
Gradle
SVN (Subversion)
SVN (Subversion)

Gradle is a build tool with a focus on build automation and support for multi-language development. If you are building, testing, publishing, and deploying software on any platform, Gradle offers a flexible model that can support the entire development lifecycle from compiling and packaging code to publishing web sites.

Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations.

Declarative builds and build-by-convention;Language for dependency based programming;Structure your build;Deep API;Gradle scales;Multi-project builds;Many ways to manage your dependencies;Gradle is the first build integration tool
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Statistics
GitHub Stars
18.1K
GitHub Stars
614
GitHub Forks
5.0K
GitHub Forks
188
Stacks
24.3K
Stacks
791
Followers
9.8K
Followers
629
Votes
254
Votes
43
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 110
    Flexibility
  • 51
    Easy to use
  • 47
    Groovy dsl
  • 22
    Slow build time
  • 10
    Crazy memory leaks
Cons
  • 8
    Inactionnable documentation
  • 6
    It is just the mess of Ant++
  • 4
    Hard to decide: ten or more ways to achieve one goal
  • 2
    Dependency on groovy
  • 2
    Bad Eclipse tooling
Pros
  • 20
    Easy to use
  • 13
    Simple code versioning
  • 5
    User/Access Management
  • 3
    Complicated code versionioning by Subversion
  • 2
    Free
Cons
  • 7
    Branching and tagging use tons of disk space

What are some alternatives to Gradle, SVN (Subversion)?

Git

Git

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Apache Maven

Apache Maven

Maven allows a project to build using its project object model (POM) and a set of plugins that are shared by all projects using Maven, providing a uniform build system. Once you familiarize yourself with how one Maven project builds you automatically know how all Maven projects build saving you immense amounts of time when trying to navigate many projects.

Bazel

Bazel

Bazel is a build tool that builds code quickly and reliably. It is used to build the majority of Google's software, and thus it has been designed to handle build problems present in Google's development environment.

Mercurial

Mercurial

Mercurial is dedicated to speed and efficiency with a sane user interface. It is written in Python. Mercurial's implementation and data structures are designed to be fast. You can generate diffs between revisions, or jump back in time within seconds.

Pants

Pants

Pants is a build system for Java, Scala and Python. It works particularly well for a source code repository that contains many distinct projects.

Plastic SCM

Plastic SCM

Plastic SCM is a distributed version control designed for big projects. It excels on branching and merging, graphical user interfaces, and can also deal with large files and even file-locking (great for game devs). It includes "semantic" features like refactor detection to ease diffing complex refactors.

Pijul

Pijul

Pijul is a free and open source (AGPL 3) distributed version control system. Its distinctive feature is to be based on a sound theory of patches, which makes it easy to learn and use, and really distributed.

JitPack

JitPack

JitPack is an easy to use package repository for Gradle/Sbt and Maven projects. We build GitHub projects on demand and provides ready-to-use packages.

SBT

SBT

It is similar to Java's Maven and Ant. Its main features are: Native support for compiling Scala code and integrating with many Scala test frameworks.

Buck

Buck

Buck encourages the creation of small, reusable modules consisting of code and resources, and supports a variety of languages on many platforms.

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