When Google introduced Gradle and Android Studio, they had some goals in mind. They wanted to make it easier to reuse code, create build variants, and configure and customize the build process. On top of that, they wanted good IDE integration, but without making the build system dependent on the IDE. Running Gradle from the command line or on a continuous integration server will always yield the same results as running a build from Android Studio.

We will refer to Android Studio occasionally throughout the book, because it often provides a simpler way of setting up projects, dealing with changes, and so on. If you do not have Android Studio installed yet, you can download it from the Android developer website (http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html).

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics: