# Chapter 1. Introduction

We would like to introduce Gradle to you, a build system that we think is a quantum leap for build technology in the Java (JVM) world. Gradle provides:

- A very flexible general purpose build tool like Ant.

- Switchable, build-by-convention frameworks a la Maven. But we never lock you in!

- Very powerful support for multi-project builds.

- Very powerful dependency management (based on Apache Ivy).

- Full support for your existing Maven or Ivy repository infrastructure.

- Support for transitive dependency management without the need for remote repositories or `pom.xml` and `ivy.xml` files.

- Ant tasks and builds as first class citizens.

- Groovy build scripts.

- A rich domain model for describing your build.

In Chapter 2, Overview you will find a detailed overview of Gradle. Otherwise, the tutorials are waiting, have fun :)

## 1.1. About this user guide

This user guide, like Gradle itself, is under very active development. Some parts of Gradle aren't documented as completely as they need to be. Some of the content presented won't be entirely clear or will assume that you know more about Gradle than you do. We need your help to improve this user guide. You can find out more about contributing to the documentation at the Gradle web site.

Throughout the user guide, you will find some diagrams that represent dependency relationships between Gradle tasks. These use something analogous to the UML dependency notation, which renders an arrow from one task to the task that the first task depends on.