I'm a fan of Gradle, it is super powerful and ultimately flexible and I can code my way into and out of trouble with it.
I like maven for its simplicity, although I do dislike XML for the build configuration language, seems to verbose and outdated. Mavens plugins are elsewhere (eg published jars), but with gradle I can also specialize and have local plugins kept with the code as well as use published plugins. I like that flexibility.
All said, Gradle has changed a lot of over the years and with that its best practices, so many of my projects are way behind the new standard way of doing things. But with either tool once its all up and running maintaining it is relatively simple.
Perhaps the new Amper project by Jetbrains (Gradle configuration via YAML) will simplify things for the 95% of cases and still allow users to extend and fall back to kotlin / groovy configuration where specialization is needed.
I like yaml. It's easy and readable. It needs a linter, of course, or you end up with unescaped strings and whatnot, but it does its job well. Plus, for the strangely passionate yaml-haters out there, the fact you can feed any modern yaml parser JSON and still make it work is a benefit for those that want to avoid yaml at all costs.
I like XML as well, especially if combined with a clear schema so it's easy to write correct markup.
I can't say I've ever used Groovy. It seems like Kotlin's Gradle DSL has completely replaced it in practice, so I can't really comment on it.
Every configuration format has its pros and cons. It all depends on what you're using it for. I'm not a fan of the endless unstructured yaml in Kubernetes (I'd much rather have something that can be schema checked easily for config that huge) but I wouldn't use Groovy for that either.
> I'm not a fan of the endless unstructured yaml in Kubernetes (I'd much rather have something that can be schema checked easily for config that huge) but I wouldn't use Groovy for that either.
Wait, there's yaml with schema support? Do you have an example on hand?
Ed:
> I like yaml. It's easy and readable.
I humbly disagree that deeply nested yaml is easy to read (and write) Kubernetes is awful - but so can complex docker compose files be.
> the fact you can feed any modern yaml parser JSON and still make it work is a benefit for those that want to avoid yaml at all costs.
Not really - JSON is a little easier to edit, but doesn't support comments - they're both pretty bad.
Even something bespoke like open tofu/terraform is better to work with IMNHO.
Geospatial is pervasively Lon/Lat and has been the standard for decades across virtually every software system. GeoJSON is in the correct order, same order as every other common industry format for geospatial. There are similar conventions for polygon winding order, whether a polygon is closed or not, etc which new users frequently ignore.
To someone that works with geospatial data, this is like asserting that RGB is the wrong order for specifying color, ignoring that approximately everyone in industry has been using this ordering convention for a very long time.
It is usually not the end applications that get it backwards, it's usually a library somewhere in the toolchain that bites you where the author wrote code before learning there are conventions for these things.
My wife has chronic cancer* and one day when talking to the doctor at the hospice after a period of grueling treatment she talked about only having so many "spoons" in a day. The doctor liked the analogy as it was a fun way at looking at a real issue.
I'm pleased I now know where it comes from! This analogy helped us both come to terms with managing her lower energy levels.
* I use the term chronic cancer as she has Stage 4 cancer. The term terminal cancer to describe her cancer has been so incredibly unhelpful, its taken me years to frame where we as a family fit into it and how we can live. Essentially, the term has caused more fear than was warranted at the time. So until she needs end of life care, I won't call it terminal even though that is the expected outcome. That maybe 6 months from now or 6 years from now.
I know this thread is about the severely limited energy of chronic pain sufferers, but there's some good lessons here for the rest of us healthy folks as well.
While we have many more spoons than someone who's ill, our spoons are still limited in number each day, despite most of us assuming they are unlimited.
My wife has had full body scans every 3 months for the past 3 years. She currently has multiple active sites of bone mets, from the spine to shoulders and hips. A single scan is much more convenient and keeps the oncologist up to date with the state of her cancer.
In our experience sometimes a new cancer site isn't diagnosed quickly, especially if it's asymptomatic and slow growing. Having past scans and reviewing them overtime has found multiple tumors so far.
Seems the radiographers err on the side of caution when feeding back to the Oncologist. Her last cancer in her neck (c2) had been tracked over 3 scans (because it was small and slow growing), before it was reported back to us and subsequently treated with cyberknife.
Breast Cancer HER2+ Currently being treated with Trastuzumab and Pertuzumab every 3 weeks. Seems to be doing its job keeping down the cancer growth rate. She also used to have Zoledronic acid at the same time but that caused osteonecrosis of the jaw, so has been stopped.
Strangely, we're relatively happy with the bone mets. The two times the cancer hit soft tissue it grew alarmingly quickly. First in the breast, then when it came back and broke out the L2 vertebrae and wrapped the nerve. At least in the bone it grows slowly. When it eventually starts to break out, the next treatment is Trastuzumab emtansine, which is a chemo drug, so will have many more side effects to manage.
Amazing, really tells more about keeping up with the Joneses and the societal pressure to conform to their expectations.
As you earn more money, your social circles change and there is a cost to moving into that circle. You have to live in the right area, dress in the right clothes and drive the right car. So the costs increase to levels that seem exorbitant to people on "average" salaries but really they are just as much slaves to the system as anyone else.
The trick is to earn good money and not spend it on frivolities, but marketeers and advertisers work hard to get people to spend their hard earned cash to great effect.
