Claude vs Gradle

[Emmanuel Bourg]

Hi all,

So it seems AI solved Navier-Stokes, but can it crack our own Millennium 
Problem, worth a million thanks: upgrading the Gradle package.

I started using Claude a few days ago for routine packaging work and 
taught him the basics. He did wonders and quickly handled non-trivial 
upgrades involving patch conflicts or API incompatibilities, for which 
he wrote patches on his own. And then I threw him at gradle, with the 
modest goal of breaking the 4.4.1 barrier. 40 minutes later I had a 
working gradle/4.5.1 package ready to be tested.

The Kotlin DSL still doesn't work, so it remains a very modest step. But 
it's the first progress after years of frustration. I'll upload 
gradle/4.5.1 as soon as I'm done checking the compatibility, and then 
I'll see how far he can go. Gradle 4.6 is in sight, and I hope to climb 
up to 5.5 to reach the version compatible with Kotlin 1.3.31. At this 
point, if the Kotlin DSL works, the road to a "normal" upgrade process 
could be cleared.

I suspected Claude would be good at handling simple package upgrades, 
but the result exceeded my expectations. That's a game changer for 
packaging work. I'm preparing a Claude skill for maintaining Java 
packages if anyone wants to give it a try.

Emmanuel Bourg