[lmm]

> I've been thinking of taking a peek into Java, which I've never really written[1]. Is the general thinking that, for something like a Spring Boot application, it's much better to just start with Maven? I'll admit I am, aesthetically, displeased with the mountains of XML config I've seen in some tutorial articles, but I imagine it's a lot simpler to maintain over time than any DSL would be.

If you're using Spring Boot then you might as well also use Gradle, since they're the same kind of write-only incomprehensible system (I wouldn't be surprised if they were made by the same people). But yes if you want to be able to maintain your build definition for the long term and actually understand how it works rather than cargo-cult copy/pasting snippets and praying then Maven is a much better tool.