What's the difference between implementation and compile in Gradle?

Question

After updating to Android Studio 3.0 and creating a new project, I noticed that in build.gradle there is a new way to add new dependencies instead of comp

Answer 1

The brief difference in layman's term is:

• If you are working on an interface or module that provides support to other modules by exposing the members of the stated dependency you should be using 'api'.
• If you are making an application or module that is going to implement or use the stated dependency internally, use 'implementation'.
• 'compile' worked same as 'api', however, if you are only implementing or using any library, 'implementation' will work better and save you resources.

read the answer by @aldok for a comprehensive example.