Gradle 的核心是基于Groovy的丰富可扩展的域特定语言（DSL）。Gradle通过提供可以根据需要进行组合的声明性语言元素，将声明性构建推到一个新的层次。这些元素还将为Java，Groovy，OSGi，Web和Scala项目提供基于约定的构建。更重要的是，这种声明性语言是可扩展的。可以通过添加你自己的新的语言元素，或者是增加现有的元素，从而提供简洁，可维护以及易于理解的构建。 
At the heart of Gradle lies a rich extensible Domain Specific Language (DSL) based on Groovy. Gradle pushes declarative builds to the next level by providing declarative language elements that you can assemble as you like. Those elements also provide build-by-convention support for Java, Groovy, OSGi, Web and Scala projects. Even more, this declarative language is extensible. Add your own new language elements or enhance the existing ones. Thus providing concise, maintainable and comprehensible builds.

声明性语言位于通用任务图的顶部，您可以在构建中充分利用它。它提供了极大的灵活性，使Gradle满足您的独特需求。 
The declarative language lies on top of a general purpose task graph, which you can fully leverage in your builds. It provides utmost flexibility to adapt Gradle to your unique needs.

Gradle的灵活性和丰富性最终允许您将常见的设计原则应用于您的构建。 例如，通过可重用的构建逻辑来组织构建是非常容易的。 把不必要而没有直接联系的内容内联在一起是不适合的。 不要强制拆分原本一起的东西（例如在你的项目层次结构中）。 因此，避免出现分散式的变化而使您的建设的维护变成噩梦。 最后，您可以创建一个结构良好、易于维护、易于理解的构建。
The suppleness and richness of Gradle finally allows you to apply common design principles to your build. For example, it is very easy to compose your build from reusable pieces of build logic. Inline stuff where unnecessary indirections would be inappropriate. Don't be forced to tear apart what belongs together (e.g. in your project hierarchy). Thus avoiding smells like shotgun changes or divergent change that turn your build into a maintenance nightmare. At last you can create a well structured, easily maintained, comprehensible build.

来自于惯在整个构建执行的生命周期中习嵌入钩子的乐趣，Gradle允许你监视以及对它的配置和它核心的执行行为进行定制。 
From being a pleasure to be used embedded to its many hooks over the whole lifecycle of build execution, Gradle allows you to monitor and customize its configuration and execution behavior to its very core.

Gradle能够带大显著的效率提升。从简单的单项目构建，到大型的企业多项目构建，它都能大大地提高您的生产力。这是结构化构建所带来的。凭借最先进的增量构建功能，对于解决许多大型企业构建所遭遇的性能难题也是如此。 
Gradle scales very well. It significantly increases your productivity, from simple single project builds up to huge enterprise multi-project builds. This is true for structuring the build. With the state-of-art incremental build function, this is also true for tackling the performance pain many large enterprise builds suffer from.

Gradle对多项目构建的支持非常出色。项目依赖是第一公民。我们允许您在一个多项目构建中为项目关系进行建模，因为它们真的适用于您的问题域。Gradle遵循您的布局，而非相反。 
Gradle's support for multi-project build is outstanding. Project dependencies are first class citizens. We allow you to model the project relationships in a multi-project build as they really are for your problem domain. Gradle follows your layout not vice versa.

Gradle提供了部分构建。如果你是在构建一个子项目，Gradle将负责构建这个子项目所依赖的所有子项目。你也可以选择重新构建依赖于特定子项目的所有子项目。这和增量构建一起为大型的构建省下了不少的时间。 
Gradle provides partial builds. If you build a single subproject Gradle takes care of building all the subprojects that subproject depends on. You can also choose to rebuild the subprojects that depend on a particular subproject. Together with incremental builds this is a big time saver for larger builds.

不同的团队喜欢使用不同的方式来管理他们的外部依赖。从远程Maven和Ivy仓库的传递依赖管理到本地文件系统上的jar包或目录，Gradle为任何策略都提供了方便的支持。
Different teams prefer different ways to manage their external dependencies. Gradle provides convenient support for any strategy. From transitive dependency management with remote Maven and Ivy repositories to jars or dirs on the local file system.

Ant任务是一级公民。更有趣的是，Ant 项目也是一级公民。Gradle为Ant项目提供了一种深度的导入，能够在运行时将Ant 目标转换为原生的Gradle任何。你可以从Gradle中依赖它们，增强它们，甚至在你的build.xml中定义对Gradle任何的依赖。同时，Gradle还为属性，路径等提供了同样的集成。
Ant tasks are first class citizens. Even more interesting, Ant projects are first class citizens as well. Gradle provides a deep import for any Ant project, turning Ant targets into native Gradle tasks at runtime. You can depend on them from Gradle, you can enhance them from Gradle, you can even declare dependencies on Gradle tasks in your build.xml. The same integration is provided for properties, paths, etc ...

对于您用于发布和检索依赖的现有的Maven或Ivy仓库基础架构，Gradle完全支持。并且Gradle也提供了一个转换器，用于将一个Maven的pom.xml转换为一个Gradle脚本。Maven项目的运行时导入即将推出。
Gradle fully supports your existing Maven or Ivy repository infrastructure for publishing and retrieving dependencies. Gradle also provides a converter for turning a Maven pom.xml into a Gradle script. Runtime imports of Maven projects will come soon.

Gradle可以适应您现在任何结构的项目。因此您可以在生产构建所在的分支上随时开发你的Gradle构建，并且它们可以并行演进。我们通常建议编写测试用例，以确保生成的工件是类似的。 
Gradle can adapt to any structure you have. Therefore you can always develop your Gradle build in the same branch where your production build lives and both can evolve in parallel. We usually recommend to write tests that make sure that the produced artifacts are similar. That way migration is as less disruptive and as reliable as possible. This is following the best-practices for refactoring by applying baby steps.

Gradle的构建脚本是使用Groovy来编写的，而不是使用XML。但是与其他方法不同，这不仅仅是暴露了一门动态语言的原始脚本的能力，那样只会导致构建难以维护。Gradle的整个设计是面向一门语言，而不是一个僵化的框架。并且Groovy作为胶水语言，可以使您通过使用Gradle（或您）所提供的抽象概念，来讲述您的个别故事。Gradle提供了一些标准的故事，但它们没有任何特权。与其他的声明式构建系统相比，这对于我们来说是一个主要的区别。我们的Groovy支持也不只是简单的糖层，整个的Gradle API都是完全的Groovy化的。只有使用Groovy才能获得乐趣和生产力。 
Gradle's build scripts are written in Groovy, not XML. But unlike other approaches this is not for simply exposing the raw scripting power of a dynamic language. That would just lead to a very difficult to maintain build. The whole design of Gradle is oriented towards being used as a language, not as a rigid framework. And Groovy is our glue that allows you to tell your individual story with the abstractions Gradle (or you) provide. Gradle provides some standard stories but they are not privileged in any form. This is for us a major distinguishing features compared to other declarative build systems. Our Groovy support is also not just some simple coating sugar layer. The whole Gradle API is fully groovynized. Only by that using Groovy is the fun and productivity gain it can be.

Gradle 包装器允许您能够在没有安装Gradle的机器上执行Gradle构建。这对于一些持续集成服务器来说是很有用的。对于开源项目来说，它也是有用的，可以降低项目构建的障碍。包装器对于企业来说也同样友好。对于客户端机器来说，它是一种零管理方法。它还强制了指定的Gradle版本的使用，以最大限度地减少支持问题。 
The Gradle Wrapper allows you to execute Gradle builds on machines where Gradle is not installed. This is useful for example for some continuous integration servers. It is also useful for an open source project to keep the barrier low for building it. The wrapper is also very interesting for the enterprise. It is a zero administration approach for the client machines. It also enforces the usage of a particular Gradle version thus minimizing support issues.

Gradle是一个开源项目，并且使用ASL开源协议。 
Gradle is an open source project, and is licensed under the ASL.