The status of NetBeans was discussed after it was migrated to Apache.

Apache NetBeans 9.0 was released on 29th of July. It contains the first donation to Apache like Java projects, but with support for Jigsaw modules, JShell etc., maven support etc. The users can install support for JEE, C++ etc. via the plugin support. The 2nd source code donation from Oracle to Apache will contain all these.

How can you help/contribute?

* There is a mailing list ([email protected])* A wiki in confluence (https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/)* An issues list (https://issues.apache.org/jira/)* A web site (https://netbeans.apache.org/)

and a lot of work to be done (bug fixing, migration of the web site, fixing license issues, writing a book, contributing plugins, participate in the NetCAT and much much more).

Apache NetBeans is still in incubating phase, but this will move to the next phase when all donations are integrated.

There is not much documentation about the architecture of Apache NetBeans itself and maybe a small 2-day conference could help give more developers the opportunity to contribute more seriously to new features of NetBeans or to solving more serious bugs.

Author(s): Ioannis Kostaras

A combined session looking at:

1. What is the state of Java Desktop UI Toolkits and Frameworks, and how well do these support cross-platform applications.

2. What are the latest changes coming to JavaFX, and what is implication of JavaFX being removed from default JRE distribution in future. 

Authors/Facilitators:

- Herman Lintvelt

- Paul Anderson

This session shows people how easy it is to use Graal in JDK 10.

Author: Chris Thalinger

Discussion around data privacy and GDPR. What the new regulation means for the user and for big organisations, and whether it's currently enough or we want to see more happening.

Author: Miguel Rodriguez

A lot of interesting information has been shared about the way we use Kubernetes, Docker and Openshift, in particular:

- problems with running Java 8 in Kubernetes

- issues when developing: k8s cluster on local (Minikube) VS shared staging environment

- running databases in Kubernetes

- approach to fix famous issue with Couchbase in Kubernetes

- different ways to build Docker images

- autoscaling and resource management

- challenges of monitoring and distributed logging

Technical interviews, particularly coding stations, are a very labour-intensive part of the process of hiring skilled developers.  How important is it actually to have a coding station in the recruitment process?  What’s the best way of conducting a successful coding station?  How much time should be put into it?  How much flexibility should be given to the candidate in the choice of OS/IDE/language?  Are there other/better ways of determining that the candidate is a competent coder?

In this session, participants outlined and compared their technical/coding interview practices.  Several participants described a similar setup: having senior developers work together with the candidate for an hour or more on an interesting coding problem.  The consensus seemed to be that, if only for the purpose of weeding out frauds, some form of coding station was essential for all but the most experienced hires.  Opinions were divided on whether the coding station must involve actually sitting behind a keyboard and writing code. Several people stating a preference for simply trying to gauge passion in the candidate – just get the candidate to describe something they enjoy working on (this approach, while often being preferred by seasoned interviewers, is often frowned upon by HR, who tend to prefer more objective/repeatable interview stations).  Comparisons were made (and contrasts pointed out) between processes for recruiting for junior and senior positions.  The session also included a more general discussion of the recruitment process, the pros and cons of take-home- and automated coding tests (and also named a couple of good systems for implementing this, such as Codility), and comparisons of our different experiences with technical recruiters.

Overall, it was an interesting discussion. Although nothing ground-breaking was touched upon, it was nice to compare notes, and to learn that one’s own experience in conducting technical interviews was very similar to that of other participants.

Author(s)

Jonathan Ross (Topic initiator, moderator of sorts.)

Major contributions to the discussions came from:

Andrzej Grzesik

Tomasz Borek

Marcus Hirt

Rabea Gransberger

Kirk Pepperdine

And several others whose names I can’t recall.

RUST Language

On Day 4 there was a discussion in the Library about Java on GPU. The topic was the state of present libraries and the influence project Panama might have in the future.

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

This was a joint session around a the ‘meta’ of Software Delivery – engaging with coworkers and aligning goals to measures that are important to the company you work for.Developing with Purpose was a discussion on how the development methodology used by your team, actually fit the business values and measures. Would you say your dev process ‘coincided’ with generating business value? If not why not?Human Interaction Protocol discussed the way to engage with certain kinds of personality types in your team, along with the how the steps of skills acquisition and mastery define how we interact with team members.  What are the best ways to engage our colleagues of different skill levels to keep them engaged when talking to us.