Are there any documentation which describes in more detail the connection between the examples in the User Guide and Gradle DSL Reference? Something like the chapter 13 in the User Guide, but in a more example driven way i.e. if the User Manual does not write all the options of some plugin, how can I figure our from the DSL Reference.
Usually there is a link to the [Java class][1] related to a particular configuration block (closure). Then, you can mostly get away with Java knowledge (assuming you are working from the javadoc). The best starting point in the Javadoc is the [Project][2] interface.
However, it is best to slowly start learning (basic) Groovy. For this, you have to read Groovy documentation / code examples (rather than Gradle) to have a better understanding of what is going on in the DSL code examples.
[1]: http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/javadoc/index.html [2]: http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/javadoc/org/gradle/api/Project.html