Comment by dcminter

Ant had the ability to write build scripts. It's part of what made Ant such a terrible build tool and IMO it's what makes Gradle such a terrible build tool.

Maven's requirement that you write plugins meant that you had to have a decent understanding of the conventions that Maven brought to the table before you could inflict some monster on the world.

In Gradle you can do something quick to get your idea working how ever terrible it is and however much it defies convention or breaks the expectations of anyone coming to the project later on.