what's the functional (if any) difference between

Property::convention

and

Provider::orElse

since Property extends/implement Provider?

convention

modifies the

Property

,

orElse

returns a new

Provider

so, convention is preferred for making a default value?

interface MyExtension {
    @get:Input
    val property: Property<String>
}
class MyPlugin : Plugin<Project> {
    override fun apply(project: Project) {
        val extension = project.objects.newInstance<MyExtension>()
        project.extensions.create("my", extension)
    }
}

my.property.orElse("foo")
my.property.get() // error

my.property.convention("foo")
my.property.get() // "foo"

The difference are other consumers of the property value. With

orElse

you say "when I here at this place want a value but the provider is empty, then use that value". With

convention

you say "if anyone wants to get the value of this property and it was not customized or was but then set to

null

, then that customer should get this value, no matter which consumer it is". But yes, even with a convention value one could set to an unset provider which makes the property unset even if a convention is set. Sometimes this even is intended and important. For example if some task has a property for a toolchain tool and a property for an executable and the tool is used if set, otherwise the executable, but the toolchain tool has a convention. Then you can set it to an empty provider, so that the executable property is used. So which to use, or maybe even both heavily depends on the individual use-case and intended behavior.