
refreshVersions with Louis CAD
In this episode we will talk about dependency hell and how to escape it, with Louis CAD and the refershVersions project!
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Show Notes
Have you ever ventured inside the dependency hell 😈? Louis CAD has for sure. Today we’re talking about refreshVersions, a Gradle plugin to help you keep your third-party dependencies up to date.
The killer feature of refreshVersions is the possibility to see all the available versions as comments in your versions file. They’re just a ⇧ + down keystroke away to update:

Louis will also tell us his personal experience with pair programming in the open-source ecosystem. If you’re looking for a peer to get into open-source, make sure you send Louis a message!
Enjoy the show 👨🍳
Show Notes
- 00.25 Intro
- 01.11 Episode Start
- 01.41 Louis’ Introduction
- 02.56 What is refreshVersion?
- 04.56 The Dependency Hell problem
- 05.54 API breaking changes
- 06.35 The cost of bumping dependencies
- 07.25 Dependency bundles and versions alignment
- 09.27 The history of this project
- 13.18 How the find newer versions?
- 15.05 A new dependency notation
- 16.46 How to use refreshVersions?
- 19.14 New versions as comments
- 19.51 Java Properties vs JSON/YAML
- 22.24 refreshVersions vs Gradle Version Catalog
- 26.33 refreshVersions vs Dependabot
- 29.42 How to contribute to refreshVersions?
- 32.13 Pair programming in open source
- 35.36 Have you ever had bad experiences with pair programming?
- 37.59 Tools for pair programming
- 39.31 How to pair program with Louis?
- 42.02 What’s next for refreshVersions?
- 43.38 Where to find Louis online?
Resources
- refreshVersions on Github
- Dependency hell on Wikipedia
- Official Documentation
- Contribution Guide
- #gradle-refresh-versions on Kotlinlang Slack (get an invite here)
- Other mentioned projects:
- Pair programming resources:
- @LouisCAD on Github
- @Louis_CAD on Twitter