Hi, I'm trying out some small things with kotlin &...

# gradle

[Alowaniak]

Hi, I'm trying out some small things with kotlin & gradle kotlin dsl and also came across https://github.com/gradle/kotlin-dsl/blob/master/doc/getting-started/Configuring-Plugins.md and I was wondering why using the plugins{} block is heavily recommended, isn't using apply<>() and configure<> also type-safe? The reason I'm sort of gravitating towards the apply and configure is because I feel like you can group it better together then (for e.g. make a `fun setupApplication() { /*appply and configure*/}`; but I'm very new to messing around with gradle and especially kotlin so maybe I'm misguided here?

[eskatos]

You’re right, the<T>() and configure<T> {} are type safe.
The type to use may be hard to discover. When you use the plugins {} block the Kotlin DSL provides easy to discover Kotlin extensions, saving you some burden.
It also enables type safe configurations accessors for dependencies declaration that you have to replace with string references when using apply.

[Alowaniak]

With the plugins{} block you can't provide any context though, for example I'm using the idea plugin for a workaround (https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-188436) so with apply and configure I can do

/**
 * Workaround for [issue explained here](<https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-188436>)
 */
fun resolveIdeaTestDependenciesWorkAround() {
    apply<IdeaPlugin>()
    @Suppress("UNUSED_VARIABLE") //explicit val and delegate required to configure task
    val ideaModule by tasks.getting(GenerateIdeaModule::class) {
        module.scopes["COMPILE"]!!["plus"]!! += configurations.testCompile
    }
}

[Alowaniak]

oh that didn't format as I would've hoped; anyway that function is called within a configureBothMainAndTestSourceSetsUnderSrc function, and I personally like that composition&grouping better.
Because afaict you can only have 1 plugins{} block

[eskatos]

both styles work well, yes