that's absurd. 1) I can't embed code in XML. 2) Why should I use a format that takes 5x as much space to declare something as a more usable format?

Agreed. On top of which XML has no capacity for logic, barring an incredibly contrived construct.

What kinds of logic are you putting in your builds? That's a sign you are doing things wrong.

hmm I wonder why this got created? http://ant-contrib.sourceforge.net/tasks/tasks/

I wonder if anyone said this about HTML when javascript was introduced?

once a system starts getting complicated you inevitably need code.

two points:

* gradle builds can be completely declarative. you write code only if you need it

* builds also are often used for very specific automation. in ant, you end up having to write custom ant tasks. this is fairly painful compared to just creating new classes, tasks, or scripts directly in gradle.

I often find that "can be declarative" means that over the long term in a big project means "isn't declarative"

After all you can do functional programming in any language. Why do you need another.