Duke’s Corner Podcast with Ivar Grimstad, who is a Java Champion, a JCP Executive Committee Member, and a Jakarta EE Developer Advocate. Ivar is based in Sweden but travels to over 40 events a year talking about Java and Open Source with thousands of developers.

He feels passionately about contributing to Java projects as the best way for young developers to learn Java and connect with the community, especially at Java conferences. Ivar has been working with Java professionally since 2000, but he's been solving problems with code since he was a little kid around 12 or 13 years old.

"Java has been my go-to language for everything!" he says. "It's been here for 30 years and it'll probably be around for 30 more!"

Interviews Archive

Transcript

00:00

Ivar Grimstad, welcome. Welcome to Duke's Corner.

0:02

Thank you, Jaymon. Happy to be here.

0:04

It's great to see you here. We met a couple of times. There was some recently at some conferences in Japan and elsewhere, and I thought it would be great to have a little session here on Duke's Corner to find out what you do. I see you are doing a lot of conferences.

0:21

You do a lot of travel and stuff. I sat in on your session in Tokyo, I guess about six months or so ago. And the audience was really into it. And so I figured, hey, I want to talk to this guy for this podcast here. So you're in Sweden and you're a developer advocate for Jakarta EE.

0:39

So let's start off with that. So what do you do as a dev advocate for Jakarta EE?

0:45

yeah so before i get into that i actually have a you you said we were meeting at conferences and stuff and i think we met i can't remember it and i certainly i'm sure you can't either but i'm pretty sure that we must have met at Java 1 in the Open Solaris launch sometime in the early 2000s.

1:07

Because I remember I was at Java 1, because you used to work with Open Solaris, right?

1:13

Yeah, yeah, I was at Simon. Open Solaris was my baby. Yeah, so I...

1:19

That was before like MacBooks were a thing and stuff. And so I went to Office Depot across the street from Moscone and I bought one of these small, you know, the small laptops, the mini laptops that had some version of Windows on it. And I just unpacked it,

1:37

brought it down to the Open Solaris Lounge and somebody there gave me a USB drive and I just plugged it in. I never booted it on Windows.

1:45

Oh, okay.

1:48

So since you were working with that, you must have been there. I got some really good help from the people in the lounge there to set up the drivers and stuff to get the keyboard to work. Yeah.

2:01

Oh, that's a great story. Yeah, this goes way back. That was so much fun. We had a bootable CD, and we had a USB, and that was like gold back then. Everything has changed now. Wow. Yeah.

2:18

Well, so, yeah, so Jakari, that's what I work with on a daily basis. And as I said, a lot of my work is speaking at conferences. So I travel around and do talks. So, yeah. That's basically what I do. Jakarta EE, that's the continuation of Java EE that used to be under the JCP at Sun and Oracle.

2:47

So that was moved over to Eclipse Foundation. And we continued it there and rebranded it to Jakarta EE from Java EE. I was so lucky to get into the role of the developer advocate there. So that's what I'm doing these days.

3:01

Cool. I mean, so if we crossed paths way back with Open Solaris at Sun, so you've been in this business for a while. You've been involved in open source and advocacy and community building basically for a long time.

3:15

Oh, yes. Yes. I thought back before I ended university or graduated from university in 98. I think in 96 or 97 was when I first encountered Java. Somebody talked about this stuff and I bought this book, Java 1.0 in a nutshell from the bookstore and went down to the computer room because we didn't have our own computers.

3:41

These old Unix machines logged in, had Java there and did Hello World. And that summer I worked, had a summer job at a consulting company in Oslo. And they put me on the client site because I had worked with them the year before so they trusted me.

4:00

And we were working on the internet banking for that Norwegian bank, and they were using Java, and they were doing it in Swing. So I was put on that, and I think I did some modifications to some of the Swing components they were using. So that was kind of the first...

4:18

time I was doing Java and the open source part of it that came a little later I got exposed to it through the mostly I think I can I can thank Java 1 for most of my this career path because that's where I got in you know the JCP and started getting

4:39

involved there and that was I guess it was back in 2017 2007 Seven, yeah. Where I signed the agreement with the JCP.

4:52

So it seems like the technology first and then the community second for you.

4:56

For me, at that point, it was. But it was sort of the community around Java that also... made it a natural thing for me. And also at that time, in the company I was working, we had lots of Java developers. This was a tech consultant company. And we had an internal,

5:16

what we call a Java competence group or sort of an internal jug or Java user group. where we had uh i think we had monthly meetings where we had technical like presentations and discussions and we also got people from the java bin which is the

5:33

java user group in oslo coming to present with us at the company and we also went to their event so so that's where i I started attending Java user groups. So that was the community that kind of brought me into there. But at the time, that early in my career,

5:50

I guess it was mostly the tech at work and community at the conferences I was allowed to go to. And that was usually a Java one every year those years.

6:01

Yeah, I've been to about 10 Java 1s over the years because I haven't always been involved in Java because I was on the Solaris project for, I guess, about a decade at Sun. We used to piggyback off of all the Java operations because they were very, very big, you know.

6:18

So we would go to their conferences basically and tag along. Yeah. And we did, you know, the Sun Tech Days had a big tour. And so we used to, you know, we used to go on that and we would obviously go to Java 1. One of these things about these open source projects is that they're so dynamic,

6:39

they just foster this notion of contribution. With Jakarta EE being Eclipse, obviously that's an open source project there, right? And Java itself is less... sort of the meta, that's the canonical open source project, right? A project of projects. Talk a little bit about this notion of contributing to open source in general, and specifically Java,

7:04

since you've seen a lot of it.

7:07

Definitely. And what I usually say when people are asking why you should get involved in, and also the reason why I got involved in open source is that we tend to consume a lot of open source technologies in our daily work. And at some point,

7:25

that scale is not even you don't contribute back to what you're actually consuming and and you're relying on a lot of these technologies. And if you're not contributing back, you're kind of losing control over over what's happening with this technology, which direction is it going? Is it fitting our needs?

7:46

Should we get involved to contribute back so we can kind of make sure it's still the technology we can rely on? So it's kind of a give and take, a win-win situation there. I think most contributions that are sustainable comes from when you are using the technology yourself.

8:07

So you're kind of feeling the pain points and you're figuring out it's easier for me to fix it than ask somebody else to do it. that was kind of my first contribution into open source that was actually sort of that but it wasn't related to java it was um scala that was was kind of coming at

8:28

that time and they had a lot of these getting started with scala guides like a couple of pages with some simple examples And they were translated to a lot of languages, but they didn't have the Norwegian translation. So I translated it into Norwegian and committed it to their subversion or whatever they had.

8:50

And they had one comment back about some of the formats I've used in the documents. So I fixed those and they accepted it and it was published on the webpage the next day. So that was kind of a big thing to have my name out there on some piece of stuff that people could use.

9:07

So how long did that take to do? It wasn't a big document, so some hours, maybe a day or two in total. So I just spread it out a little.

9:18

So you truly understood the concept then in terms of actually doing some work and contributing it back and then seeing the result of that. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because sometimes I ask that question and I get these very interesting stories where somebody will say that they did a contribution and they

9:37

wrote up a blog about it and then went to bed, right? Just, you know, here's the contribution. This is what I did. They submitted it and then just, you know, articulated, you know, this is what I did basically in a blog post and went to bed and then woke up the next morning and they've got like 500,

9:51

you know, comments on the blog and stuff. Yeah. And this thing is sneaking through whatever million list they contributed to and everything. And they're just so blown away by the result of the contribution. I find that fascinating.

10:05

It is. Yeah. And I think many people who are kind of struggling with where should I start? What should I do there? Maybe they're thinking a little bit too big and thinking, hey, I can fix this big, massive project that everybody is using rather than focusing on this is a little

10:23

piece of code or piece of document or a graphic. It doesn't have to be code to be open source contribution. It can be anything, especially documentation and tutorials are what all open source projects are super happy to have contributions on. So it could be a small piece

10:40

Like my three-page or whatever Norwegian translation, it doesn't take me much effort to do it. But it is actually a fairly visible thing because it's one piece of work that can be published. And if you contribute to, for example, a super vital if statement that solves a big security problem internally in some open source app server,

11:06

You may have saved the world, but people may never notice that it was here because it's just hidden down there. So find some kind of thing that you can actually show, like the blog post you're talking about, show what you've done.

11:20

I was at a conference once, actually it was last year in Vietnam. It was FOSS Asia, and there were 5,000 students there. And it was really kind of cool because it was just all these kids. They're all 22, 23, 24 years old and from multiple universities in Vietnam.

11:41

And a lot of them would ask, what can I do? Because they hadn't left Vietnam. They're too young. They haven't traveled, but they know this stuff is global. And all these projects are global. And I said, well, I mean, you can start a user group. You can get involved in user groups.

12:00

But think in terms of contributing something. Take what you're learning in school and do some sort of contribution. Get involved in GitHub. Get your name out there within the project that you're interested in. And start small. And if you do that as a student, when you graduate, you already have a portfolio.

12:19

And they thought that was a really great idea, and they were really excited about it. And a bunch of them were actually learning Java. And it was really interesting to see. I like to talk about this concept of contributing because it sort of equals the playing field. There's a lot of famous people in technology and stuff,

12:36

and there's a lot of people who are new and they're young, right? What can you do? Well, you can contribute. And also, for me, it's like I've changed careers multiple times. I got into this career really late. I'm older than everybody. And I got in because of this specific reason is things move fast and you can

12:55

contribute and you can get yourself known. Because not all professions have this concept. Yeah.

13:03

Yeah, so when I chose this kind of career path, my family were, are you sure you want to do this? People are, things are happening so fast there. You have to always learn. You can never, you know, in many other professions, you can just learn your trade and then just do it, you know. And continue.

13:25

But in our industry, you have to learn continuously. And the second you stop learning, especially these days with AI coming in all over the place, and if you're not on top of it, it's hard to stay here in this industry. And one of the best ways of learning things is by doing. Like we learn with our fingers.

13:48

We learn by doing it. You can read a lot of books about programming, but when you start actually doing the coding, that's when you learn. I mean, that's not special for our industry. I mean, who would go on a plane if the pilot had learned flying by reading about it?

14:09

So it's learning by doing and the best way of getting away from just the sort of exercises you have at schools and university and doing something that is actually industry relevant. is an open source project that many people are using. And if you can contribute and learn so much about that technology that you can

14:30

contribute to it and learn by doing it, by building that open source technology, you're actually building, you're giving yourself the benefit of learning. So contribution is by the word itself, it's you give something, you know, but it's actually you're getting something because you're getting all this knowledge by doing it.

14:50

And that's what's fascinating about open source that we can just, you know, trade this. I do this and I learn this. also when you when you contribute to an open source project there are usually committers there that has been there for a long time and many of them are like you

15:05

say famous in this industry has written books or speakers at conferences or are well-known figures in the industry and you get to learn with them by solving problems together with them so you you learn from the best and you see how they write code how they solve problems So it is the best way of learning, I think.

15:27

So by doing that with telling the students in Vietnam to go out and contribute to learn, that's the best way of doing it.

15:37

Yeah, it's interesting. I've spoken with many developers who have told me that their first experience maybe at a conference and there would be approaching one of the senior developers with like a question or something after a session and they were so surprised that the you know senior or famous person was so willing to just

15:58

chat for like a half an hour in the hallway about this obscure bug that they found somewhere you know and there's a really famous people you know it's like I was talking to Gosling, and he just was going off and off and off on this great thing.

16:12

You're talking to James Gosling here, and he gave you all that time. That's a normal story. Same thing with Venkat Subramanian. He's a sweet guy. He loves to teach. He loves to engage people. He goes to be in big conferences and stuff, but he also goes to small user groups. He interacts with everybody at all levels.

16:34

So I think what you said is really apt in the sense of the more senior people, the more famous people many times are very humble and they just want to chat about technology.

16:45

Yeah, and we have this technology that kind of unites us. And because most of us are, some are more geeky than others, but we're usually, we're coders, we're probably geeks in everybody else's eyes. And many of us are introverts, even though if we're speakers, we're not necessarily comfortable in a social context.

17:08

But when we have this technology together that we can talk about, then we can open up more easily. Yeah.

17:13

That's really interesting you say that because although I'm not a coder, I've taken a few programming classes in school and stuff, but I can't say anything without a camera in my hand. So when I go to a conference, I'm usually taking photographs, right? Even if I'm working and managing the event,

17:32

which I had to do a lot of times at Oracle and previously at Sun, where we'd have to actually manage the event or run a user group, something like that. I always have my camera with me to shoot the event because I'm always interested in profiling developers and stuff.

17:45

But I can't talk to anybody socially unless I have the damn camera with me. So it's a topic of conversation. So when you were in school, did you choose software for any of these specific reasons or you just like complex solving puzzles and complex problems? Yeah.

18:05

Yeah, so I feel I just slipped into this career path by coincidence. I think I am a problem solver. I was good at math and physics and those kind of subjects. I got a computer fairly early. It was a, I don't know if anybody knows, it was a Sharp MC700 or something. It has an integrated cassette player.

18:30

So I could load it with BASIC on a cassette. So I learned a little bit of coding on that one, but it was mostly games. My coding started, I think, when I got a Commodore 128, which came with BASIC when you open it up. And I had this...

18:52

a little program on my sharp computer that I could use to test me in words you know when we were learning English at school or English and French at school you had this test you get 20 words that you have to know until tomorrow and then you got a

19:07

test just translated and this program let me type in the words and the translations and it would test me until I had all 30 words correct Cool. It's like an algorithm. But the Commodore didn't have this. So I made it. I coded it in BASIC. So I could still test myself in these words.

19:28

And that was my first programming thing. After that, I elected some programming at the high school I was at, where we learned some Pascal coding, mostly by writing on paper. Because the computer room were limited access to, so we can only get in there like a couple of hours or so.

19:49

So we had to write the programs on paper first and then have them evaluated by the teacher. He was kind of the walking compiler and then typing in. Different times, you know. At that time, when I was like 12, 13, I would say I was probably a decent programmer. I could solve problems using code.

20:11

But when I came to university, the others were so much more clever and so much better because they were really into this kind of stuff more than me. So I was still the problem solver, but not necessarily the one typing the code.

20:28

So what was the difference with them, though?

20:30

I'm not sure, actually. But I think my interests were as far as it's sort of useful within the kind of the ecosystem I know about. And that was sort of having the cassette tapes were my interface to the world. I didn't have a modem or anything. So internet wasn't a thing then. Yeah, yeah.

20:54

But these guys had probably were in environments where they had some... Internet, it was in these young days. So I started university in 93. So internet was there, but it wasn't like web browsers and stuff. It was just you logged into a terminal and text-based everything. But they've been doing that for a while, I think.

21:16

So they had been in these more hacker kind of environments. Right. at home, and were more, yeah, I'm going to just have a master's degree in programming, where I was just, I wanted to be a marine engineer, and I didn't get in there, so I ended up on computer science.

21:40

But after the first classes, I felt at home there, and yeah, this is my thing. When did you trip over Java? It must have been in 96 or 97.

21:55

So right around Java, yeah.

21:58

Yes, it was Java 1.0, and I wrote the Hello World on the Unix terminal at the university. And I got to use it in a, well, quote-unquote, professional capacity at my summer job in 97. And I started using it in work around 99, 2000, and ever since, yeah.

22:24

So it's been your main focus since then?

22:26

Yes, it has been. I've touched into other programming languages, but I've ended up with Java. That's been my go-to language for everything. I guess it is. I think Jane Gosling, he wanted to be the blue-collar language. It's a multipurpose language you can use for anything.

22:46

It's kind of the thing you would use to solve the most problems with. Not kind of the special cases, you would use something else, but most cases you can use Java. And I think the timing when I started working, Java was conquering the server side. So everything was J2EE at that time.

23:08

And that was a money machine for everybody around there. All the old COBOL systems had to be replaced by J2EE because they had to solve this 2000 year problem anyway. So they had to do something and J2EE was there. And it was a brilliant technology at the time. And that was when I started working with it.

23:28

So that's been my thing since.

23:31

So you've had the benefit of seeing really the whole evolution of Java. So let's talk a little bit about the technology. I always ask everybody, why Java? What makes it special? Because, I mean, like in your case, it's been your primary focus for your whole adult career. So talk a little bit about the evolution.

23:53

You talked a little bit about how you got involved early on and now we're 30 years later here. 30 years old, I guess next month is Java. Why Java? What makes it special?

24:05

Yeah, it's a good question. I think at the time, Java was everywhere. If you were working anywhere as a consultant, coder, programmer in the industry, you were using Java for everything. It works for most things. The language itself, I guess... People complain that it's too verbose, it's too complicated to do certain things.

24:35

I think it's one of the good things about why Java is still around here is its simplicity and its readability, its simple rules. The things that made C++ hard, for example, isn't hard in Java. You have the garbage collector.

24:51

I hope you don't have to think about the memory things, the issues you would have in C and C++. The multiple inheritance that you have in Java. C++ just makes things hard. People miss it and Java says that by not having it, it's hard. But I think having these kind of simple guidelines when they created the language

25:12

makes it easy to learn, easy to use. And if you look at how it's evolved over these years, oh my god, it's... When generics came in Java 5, I mean, that was a big thing for us to get over. And then the next one, I guess, was Java 8 when you get streams.

25:32

And now the releases are coming so fast that you don't remember anything that's coming in the different versions. But it's evolving and taking away these small pain points slowly and still being relevant after 30 years. I think it's impressive. But it's a good question, why Java, why not something else? It's been here for 30 years.

25:53

It's probably going to be here for 30 years or more.

25:57

It's interesting you mentioned C and C++. I remember taking C and kind of liking it. I can handle it, right? And then I took C++ and I choked. I vomited immediately. It just didn't sit at all with me. I'm happy to hear that Java solved that problem. Okay.

26:20

Yeah, I think from learning the basic on Commodore machines and then using Pascal, which is more like function-oriented, and when I saw C for the first time, I thought it was, well, this is just complicated. Where is the real words, like the begin and the end of the functions? It's these stupid curly braces. I don't understand them.

26:47

But then Java came around and it had this stuff and you got used to it.

26:54

Okay, so you got involved in the technology and the community, you were contributing, and you also got involved in the JCP. Yes. The Java Community Process, which is a specification body. How did that come along?

27:10

Yeah, that's a good story, actually, because it also shows what can be a motivating factor of these things. And I'll keep coming back to Java 1, because I think Java 1 has had a big impact on my career. One of the things at Java 1 was that all these bofs at evenings where they had

27:32

these JSRs that presented discussions and JSR, Java specification requests, and all these acronyms. It was JAXRS and JAXWS and JAXXML and whatever. It's all these. these words and at the beginning it was so impressive to just sitting in a room and hear people saying these letters like it meant something and not understand a

27:56

single thing and then started slowly to understand and then oh yeah it's JSRs and started noticing people with these ribbons on their badges that said specification lead or expert group member and that and it kind of got curious how do I get that ribbon So you started going to these booths at Excavation Floor, figuring out the JCP,

28:20

and I signed up for it. I signed like a 40-page print. You had to print out a document, like sign it on a couple of pages and fax it to some. That was at the time we had fax machines. And I got to become a JCP member.

28:36

And then I just randomly chose some expert groups to see if I can get in there. And nobody accepted me until because they were all like pretty mature and established until there was a new one coming out. That was the MVC, a new specification.

28:52

And I had done my share development of like web frameworks and that kind of thing. So I thought this is good for me. So I applied for that one and I got in. So suddenly I was an expert group member of the MVC specification. We had bi-weekly calls. So I got that ribbon.

29:12

And I also met Heather from the JCP there at Java 1. And she introduced me to the executive committee. And I heard that as an associate member of the executive committee, Oracle would pay for the travels to these meetings. And I like traveling, so yeah, why not go? So I ran the election to become an expert member.

29:40

So I got into the executive committee of the JZB as an individual. And I've been there ever since. That was in 2013, I ran that election, I think.

29:51

Well, that's really great. And that's also a huge contribution as well. I mean, you have to run, you have to be elected, right?

29:56

Yeah. And I also was contributing a little bit, at least, to the MVC specification. And to that story also that when Java EE8 came out in 2016, MVC was supposed to be a part of it. But right before the announcement of Java EE8, Oracle announced that we're not taking MVC in. We're canceling that one.

30:22

And we were almost done, or we thought we were done, because we had done the spec and the API. And we had an implementation. We thought we had a TCK, because we didn't do that. There was some team at Oracle that did that one.

30:36

So I asked at one of these buffs at Java 1, I asked, but it's almost done. Can't we just finish it, somebody outside of Oracle, if you don't want to do it? They asked me, yeah, but who would do that? I said, I would do it.

30:53

So I got the IP rights for the MVC specification and the implementation signed over to me by Oracle. So suddenly I owned the IP. of this specification. And I brought in, I had some other German friends, Christian Kaltipoth, which I brought on as a co-spec lead with me.

31:14

And we finalized that spec under the JCP and released it, MVC 1.0 there. we brought it over to the Eclipse Foundation. And actually, a month ago, we released MVC 3.0. So it's still going strong. And now, no, I don't have the IPO of that one. I gave that away. I contributed to the Eclipse Foundation.

31:33

So that's a fully open source project.

31:37

So a lot of benefits there. I mean, a lot of opportunity. I mean, what you've just described is a chain of opportunities.

31:44

Yeah, it is. And it's also, I remember also being at conferences like Java One. And I think if I should recommend a young developer, what should I do for training? What books should I read? What should I do to get better at something? My standard answer is always go to a conference and continue doing it.

32:06

Because what I experienced was I had the opportunity to go to Java 1 every year and also maybe some other conferences in between during the year. By doing that continuously, I learned more and more and more and got inspired. Every time I come back from one of these conferences,

32:26

I ended up buying a bunch of books because I'd seen those speakers. They'd also written books. So I went home and bought their books, read them, and I learned more. And next year, repeat. Until you get to that point where you're sitting at a conference in a room, you're listening, it's probably a fabulously good talk.

32:45

But you're starting thinking, I could be up there. I now know so much that I could actually consider myself being a speaker. And I started submitting talks. And that's how I stumbled into the speaker circuit. And that's almost 15 years ago that I submitted my first talk and got accepted to an international conference.

33:07

And since that, the ball is rolling. Now I do 40 conferences a year. Wow. All over the world.

33:13

That's a lot. That's a lot. I can't match that. Very few people can match that. That's just constant travel. Obviously, you're meeting hundreds of developers every year. I mean, thousands in terms of the number of people who are attending your session, but you're talking to certainly hundreds of people throughout the year.

33:33

Any interesting trends that you can see from the last few years? Yeah.

33:37

I think it's very different from which part of the world you're going to. Actually, I have a feeling that Java had some struggle a couple of years ago where everybody was, no, you have to go to other languages. But it was usually on the JVM. It was Groovy or Scala or it was Kotlin or something else.

34:04

But nowadays I feel people are sort of coming back a little bit or Java isn't irrelevant any longer that people were telling us a couple of years ago. So I see, I wasn't kidding when I said probably 30 more years. So I think Java is going strong.

34:24

I see a lot of younger developers out there are very interested in Java. And one concern we have nowadays is that universities tend to jump on the latest, or not necessarily the latest, but the easier path of learning. So they're choosing to learn Python to students rather than Java.

34:45

And developers come out and get the first job, and it's usually Java. they get exposed to so so having these initiatives like we have in the jcp with java in education to to educate the university that i still have to learn java because that's what the industry wants still i think it's um it's interesting

35:08

another observation is is these cycles that we go through you know we always tend to think that we have invented something new and then we just dial back the time machine and yeah we did it 20 years ago you know interesting so yeah i won't get into the like server

35:26

started rendering people are talking like react server side components was a new thing like man we had servlets back in 2000 or even before you know so

35:38

I see you have your J-Jug t-shirt on there. I do. Java. Yeah, the user group up in Tokyo. Actually, it's all over Japan. I'm in Osaka, so I'm a little bit further south or west, I guess. So what's next for you? We're in mid-25, actually May of 25 here. What's up next? What's your next event?

36:05

Tomorrow I'm going to J-Con in Germany. I'm actually going back to Tokyo in June for the J-Jug CCC Spring event. Cool.

36:17

Well, when you go to Germany to say hello to Char, he'll be there. And a couple of my teammates will be there as well. That's an important event for our team that we usually go. And we're Oracle sponsoring as well. So there'll be a bunch of stuff there. You're also a Java champion.

36:35

So I'm sure there'll be plenty of Java champions that you cross paths with at these events, right? Yeah. How did that come about?

36:41

The Java Champions, that was... I had never heard of it. But then at some conference, I can't remember which one, but it was someone was pulled up on stage and given a jacket and called a Java Champion. And then I sort of, okay, this is a thing. So I started recognizing and seeing these Java Champions around.

37:01

And I thought that maybe I should... should make myself be a candidate for it. So I know there are five like criterias of things that you should fulfill more or less. So I kind of make sure that I covered them all for myself. So I am a Java user group leader, I'm doing conferences, I'm doing blogging,

37:25

social media, I'm doing a cool open source project contributing to technologies and all these kind of other community building aspects that the Java champions are. And I was suggested as a Java champion and got my jacket on the stage at DevOps UK a couple of years later. So, yeah.

37:48

It's a beautiful jacket.

37:50

Yeah, it is. And one funny thing is when I tell people I'm a Java champion or people that aren't familiar with the program, they think, oh, you have to be very good at Java. And I say, no, I'm probably not. And I mean, I know a way around it, but I'm not a very good Java programmer.

38:09

That's nothing to do with, you're not a champion of Java. You're championing Java. So it's about getting Java out to the people. I think that's a, people get a little bit surprised when I tell them that. And then you see, some of them you see, which are probably very good Java developers and think,

38:31

I'm the best Java developer in the world. I should be a Java champion. But when I said, and they asked me, how should I become a Java champion? I say, well, you can start coming to the Java user group and you can start presenting on the Java user group because it's all about the community.

38:47

And you see just the light goes off in their eyes and they turn around and go away.

38:53

Yeah, I mean, that's true. I mean, there's a lot of people who just are coding behind the firewall and they're happy. And that's fine. That's their role, too. But what's also interesting about that is many times those people, especially early on in their career, they're not necessarily aware of the community anymore.

39:13

And they discover the community through work. And they cross the firewall. They go to a user group. They go to a conference. And they meet friends. And they get problems solved. And their career explodes as a result of that. So the community is so big. I mean, there's millions and millions.

39:30

And there's all different people doing different things at different levels. Yeah. What you said about the Java Champions is very true. I mean, I talked to a lot of JCs. I'm involved with managing the program through Oracle. I mean, it's an independent project, program, so to speak, but it's sort of sponsored by Oracle.

39:49

And so I work on that. So I've gotten to know a lot of you guys over the last few years since I joined this team in 22, the Java Developer Relations team. Yeah. It is true. I mean, some of them are highly technical and they're just hacking on the JVM and some of

40:06

them are more generalists and some of them do a lot of community building. I mean, there's just a variety of people. So it's very interesting for me. I do a lot of learning through my interactions with them. All right. Well, Ivar, it's been great talking to you. Is there anything that you can leave us with?

40:24

Is there any words of wisdom, any interesting stories, anything or anything I've forgot to ask you that I should have?

40:32

i feel i've just been rambling on for an hour now but i don't know i i i say you should listen to duke's corners podcast because that's where the real stuff is so cool go back and listen to previous episodes and upcoming episodes and if you want

40:49

to skip this one fine but uh we'll appreciate if you listen to this one as well

40:54

No, I only talk to good people. It's interesting because sometimes I talk to someone like yourself as well now and someone who has no name recognition at all. But I learn from every single one of you guys because you all have different stories and different perspectives on things. I do it because Oracle lets me do it,

41:16

so that's really cool, but I find it a learning experience. And it's something I can actually do. I enjoy it. So thanks for the plug.

41:25

Cool. Learning while enjoying. That should be our slogan.

41:31

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, my friend. I will see you at a conference because you're everywhere. I'm sure I'll trip over you somewhere sometime soon.

41:41

Yeah. Thank you very much for having me here. It's been a pleasure.

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The Duke’s Corner Java Podcast contributed an 11 minute segment to the Community Keynote at JavaOne 2025 in California in March. Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations hosted the program with special guests Cay Horstmann, Marit van Dijk, and Lize Raes. The panel covered the latest bits in Java, how to contribute to the community, and the best bits from JavaOne. Everyone had a great time!

Here’s the full Community Keynote session from JavaOne in March 2025. And here are 600 images and six video shorts I shot at the event.

All images from JavaOne 2025 here on Flickr.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome, everybody. Welcome to Duke's Corner Live. So Duke's Corner is a podcast that I started on the Oracle Java Developer Relations team in 2022. So we're just running about three years. We got about 60 episodes in the can. And in some ways, it's a very traditional podcast. We talk about Java, obviously, the community, hackers,

0:28

open source, things like this, a lot of education and learning. You know, Java developers have to keep up with everything and grow and things like that. So it's really cool in that respect and it's very informational. There's no frills. There's no bumper music or anything like that. It's just conversations.

0:44

But the most important thing for me is hearing the stories of Java developers. So sometimes you hear stories about, hey, I got to do X, Y, and Z. I have to learn this. I have to contribute to OpenJDK. What do I do? Things like that. but also you hear stories like, hey, Java saved my life.

1:03

Java, you took me out of poverty. I'm now able to fund my college education or things like that. These are the stories that really inspire me, and that's why I do the podcast. I'm really interested to hear the stories of developers, and through those stories, you learn about all the other things, Java, and Jugs,

1:29

you know, OpenJDK and everything else. But it's the profile. It's the story from the developer. So that's it. It's very simple. If you just search, you know, for Duke's Corner, you know, podcast, you'll find it and love you to listen. And I've met a lot of developers here, obviously,

1:45

so I'm excited to have some new programs in the coming year. But for the next few minutes here, let's just run a little session. I got a couple of my colleagues here in the background here, so we'll bring out Kai Hortzman and Marit van Dijk and Lisa Reis. We'll have a little session. Okay, welcome.

2:15

So let's talk tech, let's talk community and maybe get a little personal too. So Kai, lead us off with some tech here. So OpenJDK, you know, so Java 24, sorry, is out this week. And what's the most important thing that developers should pay attention to or

2:33

what's the most interesting thing in the latest releases to help them with productivity or just to do something really, really cool?

2:40

Well, every release has a lot of things, and I think everyone is different in what they like. What I was most excited about was the developments that help you write small Java programs more easily, both to learn Java and also to use Java in the small. It's actually a fantastic language. for smaller programs.

2:58

The other thing that I personally liked were there were some things that made my programs run better or faster or with less memory with me doing either nothing at all or very little. The garbage collector is getting even better. I'm excited about seeing Project Leiden where I can get my program to start up faster. Cool. Any thoughts?

3:20

Yeah, I'm excited about the stream gatherers that were released in Java 24, as well as advances in or improvements in pattern matching. I really enjoyed Brian Getz's talk on Tuesday about where the language is going and to get a bit of context and see how the changes are actually like progression in a direction.

3:45

I also really like that he mentioned that they're working on improving readability of the code. Mark Reinhold mentioned the same in the opening keynote. That's a topic dear to my heart because we read code more than we write code. So anything that makes it easier to read, easier to understand, easier to work with is great.

4:05

Excellent.

4:06

I also like very much, as Kai said, what makes it easier to ramp up and onboard in Java. So these simple source files, we're dropping the static. That's the big thing. I also saw somebody give a talk about Jupyter Notebooks for Java, and that just helps people getting onboarded so fast.

4:24

They say it's for people that are new to Java, but honestly, as a seasoned programmer, I also like it to just work faster. And the other thing I liked a lot, since I'm a collaborator on LangChain4J, which is working with AI and Java, we love this structured concurrency scope value,

4:40

which will make it much more easy to make agentic systems and to have this context for our LLMs. And, of course, everything that's more efficient, memory efficient, GPU acceleration that may be coming with Project Babylon, Project Valhalla, Project Panama. So I'm really looking forward to these things.

4:57

Cool. Well, it seems that there's endless. It's just an endless list here of really cool things. So we've got a lot of technology out there. We've got a lot of really interesting things for developers to grab a hold of and do things with. But how can developers actually participate in this community?

5:12

This is an open source community after all.

5:15

Yeah, so there are many ways to be involved in the community. Obviously, you can get up on stage and speak, but not everybody feels comfortable doing that. You can write blog posts or create videos or share your knowledge in other ways. But if you're not comfortable doing that, you can be involved in your local jugs,

5:34

you can help organize them, or even just attend and meet other people, share your experience, learn from and with each other.

5:45

Yeah, it may be a bit daunting for some developers to say, oh, I go on stage, oh, I write a blog even. And I just want to say there's something that you can do that's much lower threshold to help, and it is complain and give feedback. So in the opening keynote, Mark Reinhold,

6:01

Actually, what he did was saying, we're doing complaint-driven evolution of the Java language. And I like that because they go, look, what are the pain points? And that's where you can help. Tell us the pain points for your open source project, for the OpenJDK. And we will make the language better for you and for everybody else.

6:20

Yeah, I'd like to echo both of those points. First of all, just to show up at a meeting or anywhere. Showing up is great. When I give a presentation, I like to have people who are showing up. And the other thing is the complaint-driven development process has been working really well for Java. Java is very open.

6:36

There are multiple avenues for you to report your experiences with new features, say what you liked, and most importantly, what you didn't like. And there really are changes and improvements in the language that are based by programmer input.

6:52

Excellent. So there's many ways to contribute. You can even do a podcast, just like we're doing here, too. So one of the things I actually talk to a lot of developers about is what Java means to you in your heart, essentially. So do you have any thoughts about what Java means to you? It could be the technology,

7:08

some people like hacking, or it could be just the community or anything like that.

7:13

Well, I guess I'm a bit in a special situation because I was with Java from the very beginning. Before Java came out, my co-author, Gary Cornell, gave me a call and said, Kai, we're going to write a Java book. Neither of us knew anything about Java, so we had to learn it really fast.

7:26

And no one else knew anything about it either. But there we were when Java 1 was released with a stack of books. And ever since, I've been working with Java. I've really enjoyed interacting with the people that make Java happen, that make it better, and to learn more about it and to teach with it.

7:44

One of my best experiences, I thought, was when we were able to move the AP computer science exam from C++ to Java.

7:52

Cool. Yeah, I first learned Java in university, not quite from the beginning. I learned Java 1.2. We won't do the math on how long ago that was. And then I did a bunch of other jobs in IT and had to relearn Java, which was Java 8 at the time,

8:08

which was much improved from what I remembered from university. And I actually relearned Java by reading books by... Gene Bajarski and Scott Selikoff for the OCA OCP guides, as well as a book by Mala Gupta, who is now my colleague and teammate. So yeah, that worked out really well for me.

8:28

I really like how she explains Java concepts really well. And it's been part of my career ever since.

8:36

Beautiful.

8:36

That's a really exciting trajectory. For me, I can certainly not say that I was with Java from the beginning because I was five years old. But I started, I actually came in from the side, I started electronics engineering. So at the beginning when I started as a regular Java developer,

8:52

it was hard for me and Java was mainly the way where I could not do what I wanted. But I got better. I learned it. And now Java is really a way for me to build, to change my ideas into something tangible in the real world. And then I started contributing.

9:07

And now it brought me here on stage. So it's been really a huge, become a huge love story by now.

9:13

Excellent. Okay, we just have a minute and a half left here, so let's wrap up by talking about this conference here this week. It's been a blistering week. It's a lot of happy faces. Everyone's been really cool. For us, the team who are organizing this, we're all tired and exhausted, but it's been really a beautiful experience.

9:31

I'm wondering if you have any impressions about this week.

9:35

Well, I'm very glad that Java 1 has been back and that the hallway track is as good as it always was. I've learned so much.

9:43

Yeah, it's been really good attending talks by people who actually work on the language and getting a lot of context on why changes are made. But the most important part is the people seeing everyone here.

9:55

I also find it really exciting to hear from the architects themselves, where they are evolving, what they just built, show their own demos. And one talk stuck with me, that was the talk about somebody at Jefferson Lab, where they do nuclear physics in a particle accelerator. They started using AI instead of analytical methods to fix this,

10:15

using a Java framework, Deepnets, which you can just download, it's free for individual use, so I just did that yesterday. They managed to speed up this analytics from needing many, many, many CPUs and all data centers to get it on one laptop, 5,000 times more efficient to track these collision paths by AI.

10:34

I'm getting really excited from these real-world use cases that we can do with Java.

10:39

Excellent. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for joining me. And that's just a little snip of Duke's Corner. And we did it live here. And next up on the show here is my colleague David DeLabasse to talk about the Quality Outreach Program. And that's it. Thank you. And have a good rest of the show. Cheers.

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JavaOne 2025 message from Java Champion and JUG leader Richard Fichtner. Richard reviews his experiences from JavaOne in California and also encourages developers to participate at JCON 2025 upcoming in May in Germany.

Interviews Archive

Transcript

Howdy, folks. My name is Richard Fickner. I'm a Java champion and a JAG leader, and I'm here at the Java One, which is an awesome conference. I had some really good conversations here. It's great to meet the Java team. It's great to be back. So Java One was on pause for a year or two,

0:15

and now we're back, and we can get into action and into interaction with the folks that work on Java, on the platform, on the language. And it's great to have these conversations to see where Java is going. So this is more for the folks that have been with Java for many years.

0:31

Me and myself have been with Java for over 20 years, and so it's great to see how the language evolves. But even more important, it's to bring new people to Java. So we had a lot of discussions on day zero of the conference. There was a summit for educators in Java and Java in education.

0:49

So we discussed a lot of things, how we can bring new people, college students, high schoolers, and also people from different industries or different programming languages to the Java platform and to Java. And this is very exciting and this is also something we value highly at JCON Europe. This is a conference that I run back in Germany.

1:09

In Europe we have people from over 60 countries coming to JCON and we have a specialized beginner track because we find it's important to get people onto Java and start with a few things from the bottom up and it's always good also for me to get things from the bottom up.

1:26

This all new AI thing is just sweeping us all and it's great to see that Java is up to the challenge. So I recommend you come to JCon as you obviously missed Java 1 right now or come to Java 1 next year and learn with the Java community.

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Message from JavaOne 2025 from Apostolos Giannakidis, a Java developer from Greece.

Archive

Transcript

Καλησπέρα. Ονομάζομαι Αποστόλης Γεννακίδης. Μόλις έδωσα μία ομιλία στο Java One για runtime security σε Java. Καταπληκτική εμπειρία. Προτείνω ανεπιφύλεκτα σε όλους να έρθουν στα Java One, αν μπορούν, όποτε μπορούν, θα συναντήσουν καταπληκτικούς ανθρώπους, ανθρώπους που διαμορφώνουν την τεχνολογία της Java. Τους ίδιους ανθρώπους που είναι οι αρχιτέκτονες της γλώσσας. Δεν υπάρχει καλύτερο event

0:26

πέρα από το Java One για να συναντήσετε τους ανθρώπους που φτιάχνουν την τεχνολογία και θα μάθετε μέσα από αυτούς πράγματα που δεν θα έχετε την ευκαιρία να συναντήσετε κάποιο. Ήτανε καταπληκτική εμπειρία, είμαι ευγνώμων που βρέθηκα εδώ και μπόρεσε και έδωσε μια ομιλία σε ένα τόσο σημαντικό συνέδριο. Χαιρετήσματα στην Ελλάδα και σε όλους τους φίλους μου.

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Message from JavaOne 2025 from Japan Java User Group (JJUG) member and Java engineer Daishi Tabata.

Archive

Transcript

初めてJava 1に参加したんですけれど、長年参加されている日本の方々が温かく迎えてくれてとても楽しめています。セッションも実際の機能を作った方々が話されているのを聞くことができるというのは貴重な機会で良かったと思います。 ただ今回は初めて来て英語がやっぱり結構苦労しているので、また次回以降も参加してたくさん学べるようになるためには、いっぱい勉強がいるなというふうに思っています。また次回もぜひ参加したいです。ありがとうございました。

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Message from JavaOne 2025 from Japan Java User Group (JJUG) leader and OpenJDK Committer Chihiro Ito.

Archive

Transcript

オープンJDKコミッターの伊藤千尋です今回のJava 1ではプロジェクトライデンとかバーチャルスレッドとかAI関連のバビロンというプロジェクトについていろいろ最新情報を知ることができましたぜひ日本のJavaエンジニアの皆さんも次回開催されるJava 1に参加していただきこのような情報を入手していただければと思いますありがとうございました

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Message from JavaOne 2025 in California from Japan Java User Group (JJUG) leader Takaaki Sugiyama.

Archive

Transcript

2005年にJava1に来たのが初めてでそれからちょうど20年なんですよね何回も来るうちに知り合いも増えて日本人だけじゃなくて海外の知り合いであるとかこっちのJavaチャンピオンであるとかすごい人たちに囲まれてすごい刺激をここで受けてまた日本に帰ってこれを日本のみんなに伝えてこういうふうに今Javaが いかに熱い言語になっているかということをもう一度再確認してモチベーションを高めていきたいなと思っています

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Message from JavaOne 2025 from Japan Java User Group (JJUG) leader and Java Champion Shin Tanimoto.

Archive

Transcript

J J U G 代 表 で J a v a C h a m p i o n の 谷 本 で す 今 日 久 々 に 2 年 ぶ り か 3 年 ぶ り に J a v a 1 に 来 た ん で す け ど 今 回 の J a v a

0:08

1 は オ ラ ク ル 社 で 開 催 さ れ て い て ま だ 規 模 は 小 さ く て 1 0 0 0 人 以 下 ぐ ら い な ん で す け ど そ こ 結 構 セ ッ シ ョ ン が い っ ぱ い あ っ て

0:21

N e t f l i x の 事 例 と か あ と 最 近 の も ち ろ ん J D K の 新 機 能 と か の 説 明 が い っ ぱ い あ っ て ち ょ っ と 2 , 3 年 J a v a の 勉 強 を 自 分 が し て な か っ た う ち に す ご い い ろ ん な 新 機 能 が 追 加 さ れ て て ま た ち ょ っ と 一 か ら 勉 強 し な き ゃ い け な い な っ て 思 う も の が た く さ ん あ っ て い い 刺 激 に な り ま し た こ れ か ら J a v a は も っ と 大 き く な っ て い く と 思 う ん で で き れ ば 毎 年 参 加 し て い き た い と 思 い ま す 皆 さ ん も ぜ ひ 来 て く だ さ い お 願 い し ま す

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The Duke’s Corner Java Podcast contributed an 11 minute segment to the Community Keynote at JavaOne 2025 in California in March. Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations hosted the program with special guests Cay Horstmann, Marit van Dijk, and Lize Raes. The panel covered the latest bits in Java, how to contribute to the community, and the best bits from JavaOne. Everyone had a great time!

Here’s the full Community Keynote session from JavaOne in March 2025.

Archive

All images from JavaOne 2025.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome, everybody. Welcome to Duke's Corner Live. So Duke's Corner is a podcast that I started on the Oracle Java Developer Relations team in 2022. So we're just running about three years. We got about 60 episodes in the can. And in some ways, it's a very traditional podcast. We talk about Java, obviously, the community, hackers,

0:28

open source, things like this, a lot of education and learning. You know, Java developers have to keep up with everything and grow and things like that. So it's really cool in that respect and it's very informational. There's no frills. There's no bumper music or anything like that. It's just conversations.

0:44

But the most important thing for me is hearing the stories of Java developers. So sometimes you hear stories about, hey, I got to do X, Y, and Z. I have to learn this. I have to contribute to OpenJDK. What do I do? Things like that. but also you hear stories like, hey, Java saved my life.

1:03

Java, you took me out of poverty. I'm now able to fund my college education or things like that. These are the stories that really inspire me, and that's why I do the podcast. I'm really interested to hear the stories of developers, and through those stories, you learn about all the other things, Java, and Jugs,

1:29

you know, OpenJDK and everything else. But it's the profile. It's the story from the developer. So that's it. It's very simple. If you just search, you know, for Duke's Corner, you know, podcast, you'll find it and love you to listen. And I've met a lot of developers here, obviously,

1:45

so I'm excited to have some new programs in the coming year. But for the next few minutes here, let's just run a little session. I got a couple of my colleagues here in the background here, so we'll bring out Kai Hortzman and Marit van Dijk and Lisa Reis. We'll have a little session. Okay, welcome.

2:15

So let's talk tech, let's talk community and maybe get a little personal too. So Kai, lead us off with some tech here. So OpenJDK, you know, so Java 24, sorry, is out this week. And what's the most important thing that developers should pay attention to or

2:33

what's the most interesting thing in the latest releases to help them with productivity or just to do something really, really cool?

2:40

Well, every release has a lot of things, and I think everyone is different in what they like. What I was most excited about was the developments that help you write small Java programs more easily, both to learn Java and also to use Java in the small. It's actually a fantastic language. for smaller programs.

2:58

The other thing that I personally liked were there were some things that made my programs run better or faster or with less memory with me doing either nothing at all or very little. The garbage collector is getting even better. I'm excited about seeing Project Leiden where I can get my program to start up faster. Cool. Any thoughts?

3:20

Yeah, I'm excited about the stream gatherers that were released in Java 24, as well as advances in or improvements in pattern matching. I really enjoyed Brian Getz's talk on Tuesday about where the language is going and to get a bit of context and see how the changes are actually like progression in a direction.

3:45

I also really like that he mentioned that they're working on improving readability of the code. Mark Reinhold mentioned the same in the opening keynote. That's a topic dear to my heart because we read code more than we write code. So anything that makes it easier to read, easier to understand, easier to work with is great.

4:05

Excellent.

4:06

I also like very much, as Kai said, what makes it easier to ramp up and onboard in Java. So these simple source files, we're dropping the static. That's the big thing. I also saw somebody give a talk about Jupyter Notebooks for Java, and that just helps people getting onboarded so fast.

4:24

They say it's for people that are new to Java, but honestly, as a seasoned programmer, I also like it to just work faster. And the other thing I liked a lot, since I'm a collaborator on LangChain4J, which is working with AI and Java, we love this structured concurrency scope value,

4:40

which will make it much more easy to make agentic systems and to have this context for our LLMs. And, of course, everything that's more efficient, memory efficient, GPU acceleration that may be coming with Project Babylon, Project Valhalla, Project Panama. So I'm really looking forward to these things.

4:57

Cool. Well, it seems that there's endless. It's just an endless list here of really cool things. So we've got a lot of technology out there. We've got a lot of really interesting things for developers to grab a hold of and do things with. But how can developers actually participate in this community?

5:12

This is an open source community after all.

5:15

Yeah, so there are many ways to be involved in the community. Obviously, you can get up on stage and speak, but not everybody feels comfortable doing that. You can write blog posts or create videos or share your knowledge in other ways. But if you're not comfortable doing that, you can be involved in your local jugs,

5:34

you can help organize them, or even just attend and meet other people, share your experience, learn from and with each other.

5:45

Yeah, it may be a bit daunting for some developers to say, oh, I go on stage, oh, I write a blog even. And I just want to say there's something that you can do that's much lower threshold to help, and it is complain and give feedback. So in the opening keynote, Mark Reinhold,

6:01

Actually, what he did was saying, we're doing complaint-driven evolution of the Java language. And I like that because they go, look, what are the pain points? And that's where you can help. Tell us the pain points for your open source project, for the OpenJDK. And we will make the language better for you and for everybody else.

6:20

Yeah, I'd like to echo both of those points. First of all, just to show up at a meeting or anywhere. Showing up is great. When I give a presentation, I like to have people who are showing up. And the other thing is the complaint-driven development process has been working really well for Java. Java is very open.

6:36

There are multiple avenues for you to report your experiences with new features, say what you liked, and most importantly, what you didn't like. And there really are changes and improvements in the language that are based by programmer input.

6:52

Excellent. So there's many ways to contribute. You can even do a podcast, just like we're doing here, too. So one of the things I actually talk to a lot of developers about is what Java means to you in your heart, essentially. So do you have any thoughts about what Java means to you? It could be the technology,

7:08

some people like hacking, or it could be just the community or anything like that.

7:13

Well, I guess I'm a bit in a special situation because I was with Java from the very beginning. Before Java came out, my co-author, Gary Cornell, gave me a call and said, Kai, we're going to write a Java book. Neither of us knew anything about Java, so we had to learn it really fast.

7:26

And no one else knew anything about it either. But there we were when Java 1 was released with a stack of books. And ever since, I've been working with Java. I've really enjoyed interacting with the people that make Java happen, that make it better, and to learn more about it and to teach with it.

7:44

One of my best experiences, I thought, was when we were able to move the AP computer science exam from C++ to Java.

7:52

Cool. Yeah, I first learned Java in university, not quite from the beginning. I learned Java 1.2. We won't do the math on how long ago that was. And then I did a bunch of other jobs in IT and had to relearn Java, which was Java 8 at the time,

8:08

which was much improved from what I remembered from university. And I actually relearned Java by reading books by... Gene Bajarski and Scott Selikoff for the OCA OCP guides, as well as a book by Mala Gupta, who is now my colleague and teammate. So yeah, that worked out really well for me.

8:28

I really like how she explains Java concepts really well. And it's been part of my career ever since.

8:36

Beautiful.

8:36

That's a really exciting trajectory. For me, I can certainly not say that I was with Java from the beginning because I was five years old. But I started, I actually came in from the side, I started electronics engineering. So at the beginning when I started as a regular Java developer,

8:52

it was hard for me and Java was mainly the way where I could not do what I wanted. But I got better. I learned it. And now Java is really a way for me to build, to change my ideas into something tangible in the real world. And then I started contributing.

9:07

And now it brought me here on stage. So it's been really a huge, become a huge love story by now.

9:13

Excellent. Okay, we just have a minute and a half left here, so let's wrap up by talking about this conference here this week. It's been a blistering week. It's a lot of happy faces. Everyone's been really cool. For us, the team who are organizing this, we're all tired and exhausted, but it's been really a beautiful experience.

9:31

I'm wondering if you have any impressions about this week.

9:35

Well, I'm very glad that Java 1 has been back and that the hallway track is as good as it always was. I've learned so much.

9:43

Yeah, it's been really good attending talks by people who actually work on the language and getting a lot of context on why changes are made. But the most important part is the people seeing everyone here.

9:55

I also find it really exciting to hear from the architects themselves, where they are evolving, what they just built, show their own demos. And one talk stuck with me, that was the talk about somebody at Jefferson Lab, where they do nuclear physics in a particle accelerator. They started using AI instead of analytical methods to fix this,

10:15

using a Java framework, Deepnets, which you can just download, it's free for individual use, so I just did that yesterday. They managed to speed up this analytics from needing many, many, many CPUs and all data centers to get it on one laptop, 5,000 times more efficient to track these collision paths by AI.

10:34

I'm getting really excited from these real-world use cases that we can do with Java.

10:39

Excellent. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for joining me. And that's just a little snip of Duke's Corner. And we did it live here. And next up on the show here is my colleague David DeLabasse to talk about the Quality Outreach Program. And that's it. Thank you. And have a good rest of the show. Cheers.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jimgrisanzio.substack.com/subscribe

Duke's Corner Podcast with Tom Cools, an engineer from Belgium, a conference speaker, a Java Champion, and the leader of the Belgian Java User Group. "I make it my mission to spread Java all over Belgium," says Tom as he describes how he runs the BeJUG as an Open Source project that takes contributions from the community. Here in this conversation Tom also talks about how the recent evolution of Java with rapid release cycles and new innovations attracted him to the language he loves. Tom is also a certified teacher so we discussed learning strategies, stress management, social media, managing change, AI, burnout, and other life experiences developers must deal with as they navigate through their careers in software development.

Interview Archive

Transcript

Tom, Tom Cools, welcome to Duke's Corner for the first time.

0:03

Thank you. Thank you. So great to be here. Finally. It took a while. It took a while, but we're here.

0:07

It did. It took almost a year, I think, Tom.

0:12

Yeah, well, I was doubting to switch companies and maybe doing a podcast while just switching companies isn't the best, if you want to talk a bit about your career and such. So it took a while, but now I'm settled into the new company. So time to have a chat. Yeah, it's great. Great. Excellent.

0:27

So yeah, no, you've been on my list for a while. I just kept you there. And so we finally hook up and it's really cool. So you are in Belgium, right?

0:34

Yeah, I'm correct. I've never lived anywhere else. So it's the land of fries and chocolate and all the good stuff. Actually, I'm lying because I did live for one year in the Netherlands, but there's this rivalry between the Netherlands and Belgium. So I don't always confirm that I lived in the Netherlands, but... Yeah, I love Belgium.

0:53

Belgium is like the great place to be. And I'm very happy that I was able to push my beloved programming language here a bit because I'm also, for people that don't know, I'm also the organizer of the Belgian Java user group. I make it my mission to spread Java all over Belgium.

1:09

Excellent. Well, it's a small place, so you should be able to reach every corner, right?

1:13

I was only there once. That's actually the amazing part of living in Belgium. It's a two-hour train drive and I'm in Amsterdam. It's two and a half hours and I'm under the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It's two hours and I'm in London by train. So if you want to explore Europe,

1:30

then Belgium is a great place to hang out for a couple of months and just travel from point to point.

1:35

Yeah, Europe, I mean, physically Europe is very big. It's like the United States, but it's so tiny once you get in. It's very, very different. you know for americans to understand i mean i go for two hours and i'm still in

1:46

osaka and i live in osaka you know so this is still the same city so okay yeah so so you're also a java champion and you lead a java user group you speak at conferences and stuff like that and stuff you love to you know talk about java why why do you love to talk about java

2:03

I need to wind back a bit because my start with Java was a bit weird. 11 years ago, 11 and a half years ago, I joined a consultancy company and a consultancy company did two programming languages. Either you became a Java consultant or a .NET consultant. And at the start of my career,

2:18

I basically got asked the question, what do you want to do, Java or .NET? And my honest answer was, I don't care, you pick for me. So I told my manager, you know what, whatever you need at this company, I'm just starting out, you pick for me. And when I left a couple of months ago,

2:34

I actually told this story again to my manager and I was reminiscing like, what if he had said .net? I wouldn't be talking to you today. I wouldn't be a Java champion. I wouldn't be hosting the Belgian Java user group. So it was basically pure luck that I ended up with Java.

2:48

It took me a good year to really fall in love with the programming language because I did my internship in .NET, then switched to Java, and it took a while because it felt a bit more, at least at that time, that's 11 years ago, it felt a bit more rigid. The release cycles weren't what they are today,

3:03

so it was a release every three years or something, not every six months, like a nice cadence. But gradually, all these things started to improve and improve and newer things came out. I remember Spring Boot coming out like, oh, we don't need these servers anymore. We can just have this jar that runs everything. And it started evolving.

3:22

Then Grawl came with native images. And then, yeah, I've been in love probably for 10 years now. So it took about a year to get used to the changes. And then once I rolled in, I just wanted to go.

3:35

So there seems to be a difference between before the release cycle and now. Because everybody brings that up in one way or another.

3:43

Yeah, it just felt, you know, all these stereotypes we're still trying to get rid of. Java is this old enterprise-y language, and it's slow when it doesn't evolve. Yeah. We're still carrying that legacy along with us, but if you look close enough, that's not what it is at all. Things like Project Loom, the virtual threats,

4:02

it's bloody amazing that they got that in there after so many years. Never really breaking backwards compatibility with previous programming language versions. Well, there's always a few breakages, but mostly... You can still run the same Java as you did that many years ago, but you have a bunch of cool new features. So this evolution, I think,

4:22

was the biggest trigger to bring my enthusiasm and also the enthusiasm of other people. Like, oh, look, it's evolving. Every six months we have something cool. Sometimes it's not finished with these preview features, but we can already see. What I really like is that collaboration that it also brings. Because before,

4:38

it used to be you have a team of Java engineers that go away for a couple of years, or at least that's what it looked like from the outside. They go away for a couple of years, they've come with a new Java version. Now it's Java engineers post a Java enhancement proposal.

4:51

Everyone on the internet can see it. Everyone can comment on it. You can try out early builds of the OpenJDK. You can do a bunch of stuff to really contribute to Java, the programming language itself. And I think we really needed those shorter release cycles to enable these preview features.

5:07

And these preview features are the ones that really enable people to contribute. Because before it was like, we made a spec, we built it, good luck with it. Now it's, we build a spec, everyone please look at it. We're not sure, here's a preview feature. And then we can iterate. But before there was no iteration,

5:21

it was basically, we wait until all the features are done and then we just dump it on. Dump it sounds a bit aggressive, but it felt a bit like throwing it over the fence. Like, okay, we're done with this version, let's go.

5:32

Well, it's interesting you mentioned that iteration. I mean, I've been working in open source communities for a long time since Sun, Sun Microsystems. And I learned a lot about that very simple concept of iteration. Working at Sun on the Open Solaris project, I used to watch the engineers do code reviews and do architectural reviews.

5:55

You would start this long thread, multi-hundred email thread on a mailing list, and you would start at one – essentially, you would start at one place and you would end up someplace very different. But then you have all that consensus building. And also, you had this education process that took place.

6:11

And I can imagine it's the same when you're releasing, when you're doing early release builds and things like that and publishing code and specifications and things like that. It gives people a chance to educate themselves as development is taking place. So just like you mentioned, it's not just dumped and there it is,

6:30

a couple of million lines of fresh new code for you to digest.

6:34

Yeah, and I also think it is a good way to get out of the bubble of creation. And with that, I mean, if you're working with seven people on something, you get so focused on, oh, we're building this and we share the vision that sometimes you get these blind spots that you don't even see anymore.

6:49

Like, oh, but is this actually good for our users? Because we're so focused on the nitty gritty details that you sometimes forget the wider sense of, is this usable? Yes or no? And I think by breaking it open, it has been done with the Java enhancement proposals and so on.

7:04

It's a great way to just say to the entire community, hey, it's basically a card to say, don't come complaining afterwards because you had any chance to help us make this better. Sometimes there's trade-offs. And what I actually like very much about how Java is being, because you always need to have some stewards, right,

7:24

that drive the process into a certain way. When there's certain things that can't happen, I love the explanation that Brian Gutz, for example, says like, yeah, I get that you want this feature, But here are all the reasons why you actually don't want this feature. And then when you read his arguments and his thinking, then you're like,

7:42

oh, I didn't know that my simple convenience feature would have this cascading effect through the entire JDK. So maybe you're right. Maybe we shouldn't be doing this. But that's all these insightful things that you might miss. And I really like, for example, I know Nikolai posts videos on those frequently, like, why is this the case?

8:02

And I love knowing the reason why we don't have certain things.

8:05

Interesting. So what types of things do you do to talk about Java out there in terms of what are your activities?

8:12

Yeah, so the biggest one is organizing the Belgian Java user group. It's a user group that has existed since 1997. So I believe it was one of the very first user groups, originally created by Stefan Janssen, known from DevOps and Vox fame. But around 2018, I believe, was the last event. And then it kind of, well,

8:35

it was going downhill for years, at least if I look in the history on meetup.com, 2018 was the last one. And I knew that was the last one because I attended that last one. And I was like, ooh, it's been a while. And then eventually I took over. There was a small sidestep.

8:51

During COVID, I tried to run my own Java user group, the Entrop Java user group. I had a genius planning idea to start creating a meetup February, 2020. So that went downhill pretty fast. We had like two meetups at like six people at each meetup max. So that was not what I was feeling.

9:12

But as COVID went away, I talked to Stefan, like, hey, Stefan, you still have the Belgian Java user group. Can you help me promote the end for a Java user group? Because you have this network and so on. And he said, I'm paraphrasing here, he basically said, yeah,

9:24

but why don't you just take over the Belgian Java user group instead of starting and something new, just take over this thing that has already existed. And that's what I did since 2022. So after COVID, it was actually pretty funny. You know, meetup.com? So that's the place where the meetup is organized.

9:41

Did you know that if the leader of a meetup steps down, that any member of the meetup can say, I own the meetup now?

9:48

Oh, really?

9:49

Yeah. So at some point, I was a member of the group. And at some point I saw the banner. Hey, the event organizer has stepped down. Click here to claim ownership. Yeah. And my initial thing was, I'm going to claim this because I don't want any sort of cynical marketing company to claim this.

10:05

I don't want, because it's really cheap. For 50 euros, some cynical marketing company could have said, click, now I own the Belgian Java user group and the entire mailing list. So my first thing was, I'm going to safeguard the community from that. I'll take ownership. Then I organized the BOF session at DevOps.

10:23

And I just told the Belgian community, Belgian community, This is what happened. I now own the Belgian Java user group. Who wants to help organize this and then we can do it together because I don't want to do it alone. Because at that time, me and my wife were starting to look into having children.

10:40

And I knew that while I had a kid, I didn't want to post a meetup full time. And basically, I have a few people then that stepped up and said, I want to help. And since then, we've been going every month like clockwork.

10:52

Really? Well, that's really cool.

10:53

So it was really a coincidence that I saw that it was available and then being like, I don't want anyone to claim this that I don't trust. Yeah. Which sounds a bit selfish, but it would have been a good deal for any marketing company, but I wouldn't allow them. And we've been going every month since then.

11:10

And I think that's the biggest way I contribute to the Java community right now. I make sure that every month there's an event. I have asked a ton of people to help out and they do. which is amazing. And I try to keep it as open as possible. So our meetup is a bit weird, according to some.

11:31

We basically run it like an open source project. So we have a GitHub project with all the issues. And the issues are meetup November, meetup December, meetup January. Inside the issue, I have a few items that need to be checked off. We need a location, we need a host, yada, yada.

11:51

And then I say to the community, whoever wants to organize this, go ahead. Oh, interesting. But if you don't do it, then I do it because I make sure that every month something happens.

12:01

Okay.

12:01

So that's sort of how we organize the meetup. And also for other stuff, I just post a ticket or someone else posts a ticket when they think something's important. For example, I'm going to show you the sticker. I know in podcast land that doesn't work, but we have this nice Belgian jug sticker.

12:16

This design is fully made by someone that answered one of those GitHub tickets. I just made a GitHub ticket. Hey, we need a recognizable logo for the jug. Someone answered, Luik, who is now one of the co-organizers, created that logo, printed stickers, and off we go. So I try to keep it as open as possible.

12:33

Anyone can contribute anything they want at any time.

12:36

But it's really interesting that you do that. It's a nice way to keep track of contributions because everything's there. Everything's in public. You can have a situation where someone is doing a lot of work, but it's not necessarily easily visible. And so that's really a great idea to do it like that.

12:57

Yeah, and I do make it a point to yell out. So whenever I mention the sticker and the logo, I will always say that Loic Mania created this. So I do give credit where credit is due. What's also in that same repo, by the way, is our guidelines.

13:14

So while I say anyone can host it and anyone can organize, we do have some guidelines that everyone has to obey. And whenever we need to make a modification on the guidelines, it's by approved pull request because it's all Markdown files. So it's a very developer-oriented way to organize a meetup.

13:30

But I think when you're organizing a Java user group, you can expect some developer-oriented crowd.

13:36

Yes, absolutely. That's really innovative. I had never thought of that. Usually, you know, someone has a website or they have a meetup and you just, you know, someone gets a room somewhere and you send a notice. Who's going to be speaking? A couple of people speaking, you know,

13:51

and then maybe you go out to dinner afterwards and stuff like that. So it sounds like you have a real feel for managing a community, for basically not only contributing, this is a major contribution that you're doing, but there's also sort of a, you have a lot of thought went into how you can get people to contribute.

14:11

Yeah, and there I do need to go back to the fact that I lived in the Netherlands for a while, because one of the reasons I wanted to have a Java user group in Belgium or an active Java user group in Belgium again, because I'm so jealous of the Netherlands.

14:26

And as a Belgian, this hurts to say, but they have like If you throw a stone in the air, you will hit the Java YouTube group leader on the head. There are so many leaders there. It's incredible. And in Belgium, at some point, we had nothing active. We had DevOps, the biggest conference,

14:43

one of the biggest conferences in Europe, but no monthly thing. Really? So that's where the jealousy came from. And actually, my hidden plot that's actually not so hidden because I keep telling every month at the meetup is, my dream is that the Belgian Java user group is a step up for more Java user groups.

15:01

So whenever someone comes to me like, hey, Tom, I want to organize my own Java user group, I tell them, no, don't start your own user group. Help me organize the Belgian Java user group. In your locations, the way we've set it up, you can do everything yourself.

15:17

but you have me to help and you don't get lost in the, you need a new logo, you need to meet the .com account. You don't get lost in all the administration that it takes to set up a user group. Do it a couple of times. And if you love doing it a couple of times,

15:30

I will help you set up all the things for your own user group, but make sure that you like it first. So it was always meant as a springboard for newer Java user groups. So one of the things that we do to try to enable that is Belgium has provinces,

15:45

and every month we host in a different province. So last month... Last month was in Blam's Brabant. This month will be in Antwerp. Next month might be in East Flanders or West Flanders. Maybe sometimes in the French-speaking part of Belgium. And we really made the Belgian jug Belgian again by making sure that it's more like

16:06

a traveling circus. Because sometimes these national jugs, they park themselves in the capital city of the country. We explicitly do not want to do that because our goal is to make sure that at some point there will be enough mass to create a separate jug for a smaller area. That's the idea.

16:25

Interesting. The, you know, the Oracle, the all India Oracle user group has something kind of similar where they have, you know, India is obviously slightly bigger than Belgium. But, you know, they have sort of this all India Oracle user group concept that it's in like 20 different cities, right?

16:44

And over the years, they've all developed sort of their own, you know, personalities. And it's mostly database and cloud and things like that. But interesting. Tell me why – I've noticed and a lot of other people have noticed recently as well that the user groups and the conferences in Europe are very active.

17:04

And that's not necessarily the case in other parts of the world, certainly after COVID with all the shutdowns and everything. Yeah. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that. Is there something unique about what's going on in Europe? Or has it always been this way?

17:20

That's actually an excellent, has it always been this way is an excellent question because I don't have a good view on how it was in different countries. I have been to DeafNexus in Atlanta. So that's like my only kind of reference when it comes to real international conferences. I'm not entirely sure if this is correct,

17:39

but in Belgium, at least, there is a thing where employers are forced to educate their employees. So you are forced to give your employees a certain budget. And what is an excellent way to make sure that your employees don't lose a lot of working time and get a lot of good content,

17:58

you send them to a conference for a week.

18:00

Interesting.

18:01

So that's, I think, what is a big part of it. But it's also, especially if you look at the Netherlands, it's also a cultural thing. It's just getting together, sharing some knowledge, and then having fun. It's almost like, you know, people have different hobbies. Some people go sporting, like football team.

18:20

Some people go to a musical band that they play in. And I think it's a bit like that for programmers as well. But it's about programming. You come together with a bunch of people and you share some values and a hobby that you want to talk about. And you just get together.

18:36

And I think also because Europe is quite more densely packed population wise. So it's easier to organize something if everyone goes to a certain office to then get together. But I'm just grasping because I don't really have a good reference to compare with different. With different cultures much outside of Europe.

18:57

Well, it's interesting because there's an active conference circuit, but there's also the jugs are very active there as well. And so I'm just wondering, I tend to ask when I get a European on the phone, not that it's a uniform place, obviously, many different countries, but I try to see if I can figure out why,

19:16

because I don't have an answer either. All right, so you said earlier that you sort of had this decision to make with .NET and Java. Yeah. But go back a little further. Like when you were a kid, did you always want to get into software development?

19:31

Have you been hacking on code since you were a little kid, or was this a later decision?

19:35

Oh, not at all. This was a much later decision. The only thing that I remember coding-wise... was I used to be a big video game player and I played competitively. I played competitively America's Army, which was like this American army recruitment tool slash free video game that you could play and Call of Duty.

19:57

And if you do competitions and you want to be a cool group of people that play together, you wanted to have a website. And that's actually where I started sort of programming that's building websites for my group of people, a clan, they call it. and then play video games together.

20:12

So I've made awful, awful, like, fire banner websites with all the ugliest anime. Those are the best ones, though. Those are the best ones. I'm sorry, I shouldn't call them ugly. It's more like very retro, like fire banner, laser things, and crazy, crazy movies.

20:30

It was incredible that you were able to move something on a screen back then.

20:33

Exactly, exactly. And the thing... When young kids are learning this stuff now, the tools are so advanced, they have no concept of how much fun it was to do the stupidest little thing years ago.

20:44

yeah exactly i think now that you mention it the the thing that was a little bit like programming but it wasn't programming at all there was this video game called the incredible machine where you basically some kind of ball fell and then you had

20:57

to put trampolines and stuff it's like a physical machine that you had to create sort of program by putting the things in the right places oh okay And I think that's sort of where the algorithmic thinking came, like, okay, so if I place this here, then the ball goes there.

21:12

And you could sort of program it like that. But I think the websites were the first real thing. And what really made me transition is I made a small detour. So I graduated high school, and I was convinced that all my teachers were, how shall I say this politically correct, subpar students. And I could do better.

21:31

So I actually went and got my teacher's degree for high school. So I'm a licensed high school teacher in Belgium for economics, law, bookkeeping, and IT. But IT in that case meant, of course, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, not anything programming. But in the last couple of lessons that I had, we did discuss JavaScript.

21:57

And surprisingly, I fell in love with programming kind of there. Programming in JavaScript, also creating some scripts in, what was it? Adobe Flash. So Adobe Flash to create Flash games. And that's where I learned a little bit of programming. And when I graduated my teacher's degree, I was 21 years old.

22:14

And I told my mom at the time, I'm too young to go stand in front of a classroom and tell kids what the world is like. Because that's what you do as a teacher. You have to tell them, this is what the world is like. These are the things you need to learn.

22:26

And I told myself, I'm 21. I know nothing about the world. I need to go explore some more. So I jumped to a second bachelor degree being IT. And that's where I really learned Java.net and all the good stuff. Did some international projects, even went on Erasmus exchange.

22:43

So that's student exchange from Belgium to Finland, nice and cold. And that's where I also fell in love with international travel and communicating with other people and building a community.

22:54

It's interesting, two bachelor's degrees. That's kind of rare. Usually it's a bachelor's and a master's, so you follow up with a master's. But you did two separate bachelor's degrees. Yeah. And there's not a lot of overlap between those two degrees.

23:09

Just a small, small piece of how to communicate with people. But I think also the teaching degree really helps a lot now that I want to speak at conferences. And I think it's kind of inverse. I love teaching. And I think speaking at conferences is like the next step. Well, it's a different step in a way.

23:29

It's not teaching directly as in you can ask a lot of questions and a lot of interactivity, but you are teaching something. And my teacher's degree actually allowed me to take complex things and wrap them in a nice package and deliver it in 50 minutes, which is very convenient because the time slots,

23:48

so the lesson duration in Belgium is 50 minutes. And when I heard that most conference slots are like 45, 50 minutes, I was like, Oh, I know perfectly how long it is. I can just look at a piece of paper and go, yeah, that's 45 minutes.

24:03

I don't have to work on timing that much because I've done so many 50 minute lessons that I know quite instinctively. This is how long, how much content I can put in that amount of time, which kind of throws me off because on Friday I need to give a conference talk that's 30 minutes. Too short.

24:20

And then it worked against me.

24:23

Well, this is interesting, though. So you must have some feelings about how software is taught now. In other words, you have some experience as an adult, but you also have teaching experience. I mean, I know when I took programming classes years ago, it was archaic.

24:40

And now with a lot of advanced tools, there's, you know, there's so much more you can do. However, the interface is the teacher, high school or college. So do you have any thoughts about how software is taught now versus years ago?

24:55

Yeah, and I'll preface this by saying that at my previous company, I was actually given the opportunity to teach at a university for one semester. So I actually was able to put this into practice. It was very practical. What I like to do now is get the students hands on as quickly as possible.

25:15

But I'm also a big believer that we shouldn't be teaching kids too much at the same time. And with kids, I mean, I'm sorry, I still view students as like my kids in a way. It's a very familial thing. It's not meant as a negative like these damn kids. It's meant as a nice thing.

25:33

But I've actually spoken at conferences about this. And that's the concept that there's a lot of, do you know cognitive load theory per chance? Like the idea that there's only so much at the same time that you can have in your head. Well, I try to build gently when I'm making my lesson plan.

25:52

I try to first give a broad overview of this is approximately what we're going to do, a bit vague. And then we go in depth into small slices that only introduce little small new pieces one at a time. And then once that all is done, I make a bigger exercise that kind of integrates everything again.

26:09

And I really like what is happening and has happened in Java with JShell in the past, make it easy to write small pieces of Java without having to introduce people to a full-blown editor and so on. And I really like, I know there's some contention in the Java community about this,

26:25

but I really like the new way to start Java programs with a simplified main method that you don't need to have a class, you don't need to have the public static things. Because whenever I try to explain things, the start of Java, when you start teaching Java and you give them that public static void main block,

26:45

I've had students, not all of them, but I had some students completely go, what is this? What is all these things that I don't know what's happening? And then you basically, until recently, only have one option. As a teacher say, ignore what's in there and only read what's between the brackets.

27:04

Don't care about the static void main yet. But I had some students that basically said, no, no, no, no, I'm going to look it up online because I need to know what public means. I need to know what static means. And they go...

27:15

Absolutely. You're correct. Because some people, myself included, cannot move on, cannot function. We do seize up if there's stuff there that isn't explained or we don't have a grasp of because we feel like other people know it. And so it's a blockage. It's a huge, huge blockage. So that's really interesting. In many subjects,

27:40

you'll sit there and the teacher will say, here's the material we're going to learn and this is what I want to focus on here, A, B, C, and don't worry about X, Y, and Z. But it's right there. It has to be influenced in some way.

27:53

Yeah, I think there we've made some remarkable strides to make it easier, this on-ramp. And I think that's going to be very important if we are going to try to introduce Java, introduce, it's already there, but reintroduce or revalue Java in all these universities again.

28:12

Because a lot of universities have moved on to Python or different programming languages. One, because the curriculum was a bit too much. So they tried to, you know, they're teaching AI now and to sort of condense the amount of programming languages that students need to know.

28:26

We're going to drop Java because they're already learning Python for other stuff like machine learning. So they can learn REST APIs and such with Python as well. And I think they're making it easier to learn Java. It can only be a good thing.

28:39

So let's stick with Java for a second here. You mentioned a little bit earlier on the release model and following projects contributing in that way and being able to have access to the technology in smaller bytes over a series of time. What else about Java makes it unique or special or something that you love to do in

29:00

terms of the technology itself?

29:02

Well, recently with all these LLMs and Gen AI, I love how easy I can integrate those things while still sticking to my main programming language. Because a lot of people told me, oh, you can't do AI in Java. You can totally do AI in Java. Don't worry about that.

29:21

And that's one of the things that I love most, that it keeps evolving, keeps with the times. When we were moving to microservices, you had Quark is coming up and Spring Boot and all these frameworks that make it really easy to build single runnable jars or Docker containers or whatever.

29:37

Just the fact that Java is still running with all these new technologies. And if I look at what's coming up with Project Panama and Leiden and all that good stuff, I just get so excited. And also the, I have to mention it, GraalVM, being able to compile to native and just have command line tools that run Java,

29:56

that was unthinkable a couple of years ago. And just enabling Java as like the, it sounds a bit unrespectable, but really right ones run anywhere. Like before we had the JVM, but there were still limitations because you had to install a JVM. But now it's with all these new things, it's really anywhere. Yeah.

30:16

So that's what I like.

30:18

It's an amazing evolution. I mean, I oftentimes, you know, 30 years now, it's 30 years this year and a couple of months, I guess, and 30 years of continuous development, you know, and also the community, 30 years of continuous development in the community. And it seems like it's just, it's everywhere as a marketing slogan, you know,

30:37

Java is everywhere, that kind of thing. So what do you think? I mean, is there, what do you tell, you know, like at the conferences and the hallway sessions, you know, when you, especially around when you get around young people. I've been to a few conferences in recent years where I was around,

30:56

like I was at this conference in Vietnam, Voss Asia, and there were 5,000 students there. They were all 22, 23, you know, children. They were children, right? And compared to me. And so, and I was talking to them about, you know, what they're learning. And I told them that, you know,

31:12

one of the most important things you can do at this age is to build your network. The technology in class, but it's really great if you can build your network by contributing to user groups or starting user groups. And then if you can find a project either in class or outside of class that you can contribute to,

31:31

start learning the concept of contributing something. So that's just an example of conversations that I would have at a conference with experts. young people. What about you? Tell me about some hallway conversations that you have, particularly with young people. I'm most interested in them, but really it can be anybody.

31:49

Yeah. So ever since I became a Java champion, I get the question more and more, how did you become a Java champion?

31:54

Oh, specifically that one, huh?

31:56

Yeah, specifically that one. But I sidestep it and I almost always go to build your network because that's the most important one. It's basically how I got my new job. One of the CTOs saw me speaking at a conference, liked it, and said, hey, if you ever want to be a developer relations guy,

32:14

eventually I'm going to need one. So once the time comes, I'll call you. And a couple of months ago, he called. So that's basically how I did things. Building a network, it works in very weird ways. Even if you're not planning to leave your company, knowing someone who works on something is very interesting. So for example,

32:34

a couple of years ago, I had a problem with a certain software, which I will not name specific by name, but I knew the developer that was part of the team. So I just posted a message to the developer like, hey, I can't get this stuff to work.

32:49

I know there's official channels, but I'm really in a pickle. Can you help me? And because he knew me, he helped out. So it can work in really weird kind of ways. So getting involved with the community, especially, yeah, of course, I toot the bee jug horn all the time.

33:06

So I keep telling people, come speak at a bee jug, even if it's Even if you think you have nothing to share, share your experience. Your experience is unique. You don't have to be a super expert to start contributing in any way. Even if you just print out a poster and put it up in your office,

33:22

luring people towards Bijak, all good. But getting people to know you is very important. The second sort of conversation that I'm involved with, because most of my topics that I've spoken about at conferences have not been technical, but more career-oriented. And my most successful one, if I can say that,

33:42

the one that got accepted at the most conferences and I got to do the most, It was actually about learning how to learn. So advice to developers, how do you learn something? And that is what I got the most questions about. And very personal questions like, people called me too stupid to learn this.

34:00

Well, how should I react? To which the answer is, you ignore that and you take things step by step. But the learning part will always be a big part of what I do. I didn't pursue my teaching thing at high schools, but I still am a teacher by heart.

34:15

It sounds like it. I think what you say, I mean, it hits me for sure. I also do a presentation on building community and contributing to communities. And so I touch on the concept of learning as well, because I struggled when I was young to learn. Many times I was told, you just can't do this.

34:34

Oh, that used to used to drive me nuts, you know, because it's obvious I can't do it. OK, I'm failing in this particular class, whatever it is. And I don't need to be told that. I mean, you know, thanks a lot. That's not helping me very much. And I once had a kernel developer tell me that,

34:50

you know, I got some bad advice when I was young. So that, you know, because you're smart enough, you can do these things, you know, that really made me feel better, you know, handled like the technical things, the advanced algebra and calculus and things like this and differential equations and things that I really, really struggled with.

35:07

So that actually means a lot. So I think it's valuable for you to be combining these two disciplines so you can talk about these things. Because a lot of people, you know, we're afraid to say, you know, we're afraid to say that we struggle learning with some of these things. And it's valuable for you to say that.

35:25

I think that's why the talk was so impactful. I actually had a few people crying almost. You know how people line up after a talk, like you end your talk with, are there any questions? Nobody raises his hand. And as soon as you close your laptop, people come to you and ask questions.

35:41

I had people basically almost crying and thanking me, like, thank you so much for, because it's a vulnerable story, because I say where I failed and where I think I could have acted differently and give a lot of advice. And The main message is you're not stupid.

35:55

You're probably making the small mistake of trying to learn too much at once. So take smaller steps and you will get there. It may take you longer than someone else. Don't care about that. Just focus on yourself. And just sending that message, I had people come up to me like, oh,

36:09

thank you so much because I've been stuck trying to learn five programming languages at the same time. And I said, yeah, if you're overwhelmed, maybe choose one. just choose one learn that and if you it also has to do with how much is going on

36:24

in your life right when my son was born i love my son but he takes a lot of my time yeah time i spend gladly there's no second doubt that i would spend any time with my son i love that kid to death but i cannot lie i cannot learn as fast as i used to yeah

36:43

I used to spend entire evenings building cool hobby projects. And I like doing stuff and then exploring and seeing what explodes, basically. But now that I have my son, I'm like, yeah, my learning ambitions are a bit lower now. And that's perfectly fine. And even if it's not something positive like having a kid,

37:04

I also had a burnout a couple of years ago. During my burnout, it was basically, number one focus is get better. No learning. Just take time to recover and get better.

37:14

Well, I've gone through both of those experiences, so I know exactly what you're talking about. The burnout, the health issues and having a kid and everything.

37:24

But burnout is such a nasty thing, man. Seriously. And I think if you spend too much time on social media or you look up too much to other people, because in my head, I was looking at Java Champions and thinking, oh, they do all those cool things.

37:41

But in my head, I forget that it's like 50 different people. And in my head, it's like, I want to do all of that. But it's 50 different people doing all those things.

37:48

Well, you mentioned social media. It's like the distractions are a big deal. And many times people just don't get how expensive switching is. You know, the switching cost. It's basically half an hour when you switch tasks. That's a long time for you to be able to reset and get into the next task.

38:06

If you're constantly switching all day long, especially on social media, you're not getting anything of value done. And you can really feel seriously burned out like that.

38:16

Yeah. And if you're not careful, because a lot of people boast on social media, like, hey, I did this cool thing. I did this cool thing. And then you're like, oh, I'm not good enough to do that cool thing. Yeah. Just stay away from it. Try to build your own path,

38:30

even though it might feel tempting to go like, yeah, but I want to be that person. No, you don't. You want to be yourself, stick true to yourself, do the fun things that you like doing, and things will come. Build your network, make sure people know you for who you are, not some fake AI avatar or whatever.

38:48

What's happening now?

38:49

Well, it's interesting you say that, know you for who you are because everyone is unique. And what people don't realize, and even myself, that the combination of your unique history, Matt, plus the particular skills, plus the company that you work for, et cetera, is a unique package by definition. Yeah. You have an interesting mix.

39:08

You're mixing two disciplines, education and software development. I've spoken to people in the Java community who went through a biology degree as an undergraduate, and they have a master's degree in business, let's say, or software development or something. And they are mixing two different sciences, two different disciplines, but that makes them very unique. And everybody's unique.

39:33

Yeah. I love it when those people bring those mixed experiences. Mixed sounds wrong. Mixed experiences sound like positive or negative. Those different histories of themselves, when they bring it together in a conference talk, it's really entertaining. For example, I remember seeing, as you mentioned biology, I remember seeing Grace Jansa, who I believe has a biology degree.

39:55

And she was mixing it with some sort of deep microservice thing. And I don't remember exactly what she was talking about, but I remember being really inspired, like, oh, these things come nicely together. There was another talk that I saw, who has a psychology degree, and she had this really funny talk about,

40:16

what does your code say about you? Are you a psychopath or are you a normal person, depending on how you code things? That was super entertaining and it was grounded in science. And I also noticed that my own conference talks are the most successful when I bring these different facets of myself to the stage.

40:33

My newest talk is about dealing with change and it talks about becoming a father because it's the biggest thing that happened in my life, but also tying it back to The biggest change that's happening now, AI, is changing a lot. People are afraid of their jobs sometimes. How do we deal with change in general?

40:50

And I think bringing different facets and different aspects of yourself on stage and sharing that with people makes it way more easy to emphasize with your content.

40:59

So in the hallways, are people really seriously, I mean, I know they're excited with AI, but are they really seriously concerned? Or is that just over-exaggeration in the media?

41:09

I've had some conversations, and I won't say where or when, but I've had some conversations with some colleagues, and some people are concerned, but it's mostly for different reasons. Some are concerned because, I'll speak for myself, I'm a little bit concerned, but Because in the past, I've made programming too much of my personality.

41:31

As in, I used to call myself a coder, probably right after I call myself a husband to my wife. So it's such a big part of my identity. And once your identity becomes under threat, suddenly there's something that can do what I thought made me special. Interesting. Then that creates a bit of...

41:52

There's also the economical part, of course. Are we going to lose our jobs? Yes or no. Some people are worried just financially about that. But I've come to, for me, I've come sort of to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. I mean, no matter what you think it's going to happen,

42:07

And so you better prepare yourself the best you can. Take time to... I'm also very... Since I had the burnout, I'm very sensitive about how I feel and how I react to things, like on a psychological level. And I try to process my emotions and my feelings whenever I feel my heart rate

42:23

going up because I saw that AI can do something that I... I used to be uniquely empowered to do. Then I do breathing exercises. I meditate and I try to check like, what am I feeling inside? Is this like serious stress or is this just something else? Or didn't I sleep well?

42:40

And take some time to process these feelings because just, I'm a bit more skeptical on people waving it away. Like, yeah, but it's just going to happen. Just accept it. I don't believe in the just accept it. Some people need more time to process what is happening at the moment with AI.

42:55

And I think we need to be respectful for that as well, especially when every conference last year was saying, you're all going to lose your jobs and AI is going to dominate. Maybe we should think a bit about how that impacts certain people in the room, because some people might actually be worried.

43:12

I think there are a lot of people that worry, but I also think a lot of it's exaggerated too. And so it's probably somewhere in the middle. I hate that expression, but I can't imagine that everyone's going to lose their jobs within the next two to

43:27

three years because I don't see these tools as actually having that ability to do that. However, it is going to change life. But it's not just changing life of programmers. It's changing life for everybody. But that's the story of technology. I mean, you can go back 5,000 years. I used to work in the construction business,

43:47

so I know the old way of developers, construction, goes back many thousands of years. And those technologies just throughout history have changed our lives for the better. We have clean water. Exactly.

44:04

I think a lot of claims are exaggerated. Both the positive ones of AGI is here and we're all going to be replaced tomorrow. And also the people saying it's never going to come and don't worry about it. I think both cases are sort of exaggerated. When it comes to your vibe of we've already been here before, right?

44:23

I actually had a story in my case. Something that actually happened to me that prompted me to make my new talk about AI and change is a couple of years ago. Well, when I started my career, so I always think it's a couple of years ago, but it's been a decade by now.

44:37

So when I started my very first project, there was this senior engineer and I had submitted a piece of code, pull request. I sent him a message, hey, could you review my pull request? But he was sitting right next to me, but asynchronous communication, you know, because I didn't want to take him out of the zone.

44:52

And suddenly he jumped out of his seat and almost yelled, these damn kids with their code completion, they don't know how to code anymore. Yeah. And I'm like, huh, what? Code completion? That's normal, right? And I was like, huh? Fast forward, I was doing code reviews for a school. So every year, my previous company,

45:11

we went to a university, they did a project and we did the code reviews to make sure that their code is up to spec. And I saw things in their code that I was like, no, this is all wrong. This is bad. And suddenly a thought passed my mind thinking these damn kids, which are damn LLMs,

45:26

they don't know how to code anymore. And the moment I thought that, I was instantly portaled back to that old engineer. And I thought, oh my God, I'm that old engineer now. I'm the one that's change resistant. And that really triggered me to think like, Oh, yeah. You know what? We didn't just have code completion.

45:42

People thought that code completion would probably take away a few jobs because we would be X times more efficient. Now it's this. And is it going to be the same scale or the same thing? No, because as they say, history never repeats, but it rhymes. So we'll see. We'll see.

45:57

Interesting. Well, yeah, we will see. It's everywhere. And it's fun for now. So...

46:05

Yeah, it is. We can stay employed. We'll stay employed. No problem.

46:13

So is there anything else you want to leave us with? This has been a great conversation. Did I forget to bring up an interesting topic that you want to riff on?

46:22

No, I really just want to highlight that if you think about hosting your own Java user group, just start doing it. My key advice would be ask. You have no idea how many people will say yes. I've been, for the past two and a half years,

46:37

been amazed by the amount of goodwill that I've gotten from famous people in our Java industry. When you ask them, hey, do you want to come over? A lot of people say yes. And I've been incredibly surprised about that. Venkat, come at our meetup, our small meetup, taking a big detour just to come to us.

46:58

I've had a bunch of amazing speakers. So if you are afraid to host something, you can find the BJC partnership guidelines online. Everything's open source. So please copy paste if that could work for you. But just try it. And if you already have a user group in the area, please go and contribute.

47:17

Even if you just go check it out, what it is. It's so much fun to just hang out with people and be able to really make a change. Because I know that people at our jug have gotten jobs, have gotten brand new opportunities, have become pretty big conference speakers themselves just by coming to our jug and

47:33

participating and So yeah, build your network and participate. I think that's the best I can send you off with.

47:41

Beautiful. I like it. I'll take it. I'll learn from it. I actually use it because I have a presentation where I talk about things that you guys have said. So I like that. So I'm going to steal that from you and I'll attribute. So thanks a lot.

47:54

It was great talking to you and hopefully see you at an event soon. Same to you. See you, Jim. Cheers.

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