Engineering a Better Java Build Tool, Voxxed Days Amsterdam 1 April 2026
The Java language is known to be performant, easy to use, and with great IDE support, but Java build tools like Maven or Gradle don't always live up to that reputation. This talk will explore why build tooling is fundamentally such a difficult domain to work in, but also how common concepts from object-oriented programming have the potential to greatly simplify the build tool experience. We will end with a demonstration of an experimental new Java build tool "Mill" that makes use of these ideas, proving out the idea that Java build tooling has the potential to be much faster, safer, and easier than it is today.
Haoyi Li