Now Principal Software Architect and Data Engineer at Harvard University, he has been writing Java since 1995 and has attended more than 20 JavaOne conferences. So, he's lived much of the entire life of Java. 

At JavaOne 2026 this week he'll present work from Harvard's Dataverse project, which uses LLM embeddings and a graph database knowledge graph to recommend metadata categories for research datasets. 

The conversation also covers Java's long evolution, his pragmatic view of AI, and his advice to students to make sure they understand full systems and not just be exclusively a coder.

Bob Tracey: LinkedIn | Jim Grisanzio: LinkedIn, X/Twitter

In this conversation, Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Paul Bakker, an engineer and Java architect in California. Paul is a staff software engineer in the Java Platform team at Netflix. He works on improving the Java stack and tooling used by all Netflix microservices and was one of the original authors of the DGS (GraphQL) Framework. He is also a Java Champion, he's published two books about Java modularity, and he's a speaker at conferences and Java User Groups.

Java Is Everywhere at Netflix

Paul will present "How Netflix Uses Java: 2026 Edition" at JavaOne in March. The session updates previous year's talk because Java keeps evolving at Netflix. "Netflix is really staying on the latest and greatest with a lot of things," Paul says. "We're trying new things. And that means there's always new stuff to learn every year."

Java powers both Netflix streaming and enterprise applications used internally and supporting studio teams. "Java is everywhere at Netflix," Paul says. "All the backends, they are all Java powered." Why Java? It comes down to history and practicality. The original team members were Java experts, but more importantly, "Java is also just the best choice for us," he says. The language balances developer productivity and runtime performance. At Netflix's scale with thousands of AWS instances running production services, runtime performance is critical.

Netflix engineers stay closely connected with development at OpenJDK. They test new features early and work with preview releases or builds before official releases. When virtual threads appeared, Netflix engineers tested immediately to measure performance gains. Paul says they give feedback on what works, what doesn't work, and what they would like to see different. This just demonstrates the value of being involved with OpenJDK, and Paul says they have a really nice back and forward with the Oracle engineering teams.

The microservices architecture Netflix adopted years ago enabled the company to scale. This approach has become common now, but Netflix pioneered talking about it publicly. Breaking functionality into smaller pieces lets teams scale and develop services independently. Most workloads are stateless, which enables horizontal scaling. Production services for streaming often run several thousand AWS instances at a time.

Early on with Java Applets

Paul's coding journey started at 15 when he got his first computer and wanted to learn everything about it. Working at a computer shop repairing machines, the owner asked if he knew how to build websites. Paul said no but wanted to learn. He was curious about everything that involved computes. Java applets were hot back then. With nothing online available, he bought a book and started hacking away. "It was so much fun that I also decided right at that point basically like, oh, I'm going to be an engineer for the rest of my life," he says.

That's clarity for a 15-year-old. And it's remarkable. But Paul says it felt natural. He just started doing it, had such a good time, and knew that was what he wanted to do. When he started university around 2000, right during the dot-com bubble and crash, professors warned students not to expect to make money in engineering because the bubble had burst. Paul still remembers how funny that seems now. You can never predict the future.

Initially, he learned Java and PHP simultaneously. Java powered client-side applications through applets while PHP ran server-side code. The roles have completely reversed now.

Engaging the Community

Paul attended his first JavaOne in 2006. "Those were really good times," he says about the early conferences when everything felt big and JavaOne was the only place to learn about Java. Back then, around 20,000 people would travel to San Francisco every year. It was the one and only place to learn what was new in Java. All the major news would be released at JavaOne each year. The world has changed. Now information spreads instantly and continually online, but Paul misses something about those early days.

The more recent JavaOne conferences offer something different but equally valuable. Paul points to last year's event in Redwood City as a great example. While the conference is still big, it's small enough that attendees can actually talk with the Oracle JDK engineers and have deeper conversations. The folks who work on the JDK and the Java language are all there giving presentations, but they're also totally accessible for hallway chats. "That makes it really interesting," Paul says. This direct access to the people building the platform distinguishes JavaOne from other conferences.

Java User Groups also played an important role in Paul's development. He lived in the Netherlands before moving to the Bay Area nine years ago. In the Netherlands, the NLJUG (Dutch Java User Group) organized two conferences a year, J-Spring and J-Fall. Paul would go to both every year. That was his place to learn in Europe. He has been continuing that pattern right up until now, which is why he is speaking at JavaOne again.

Open Source software has also been another major aspect of community for Paul. He has always been active in Open Source because he says it's a fun place to work with people from all over the world solving interesting problems. Besides being a critical part of his professional career, it was also his hobby. Paul says the Open Source aspect with the community behind it is maybe his biggest thing that he really enjoyed over the years.

AI Throughout Development

AI now occupies much of Paul's professional focus. At Netflix, engineers use AI tools throughout the development lifecycle. Paul uses Claude Code daily, though other developers prefer Cursor, especially for Python and Node work. Most Java developers at Netflix work with Claude Code. The tools integrate with GitHub for pull request reviews, help find bugs, and assist with analyzing production problems by examining log files.

Paul describes using AI as having a thinking partner to t all to and code with. Sometimes he needs to bounce ideas around, and the AI gives insights he might have missed or suggests additional issues to consider. For repetitive tasks like copying fields between objects, AI handles the grunt work efficiently. "That's the nice thing about an AI," Paul says. "While a person would probably get really annoyed with all this feedback all the time and like having to repeat the work over and over again, but an AI is like, fine, I'll do it again."

Go Build a Lot of Stuff!

When asked about advice for students, Paul's answer comes quickly and has not changed much over the years. "I think what I really recommend is just go and build a lot of stuff," he says. "The way to get to become a better developer is by doing a whole lot of development."

That's timeless advice students can easily adopt no matter how the modern tools for learning have changed. Paul had to go to a bookstore and buy a book to learn programming. Students today have AI tools to help them and advanced IDEs. But the fundamental principle remains the same, which is to build interesting applications. Paul recommends that students come up with a fun problem and just build it. You learn by making mistakes. You build a system, reach the end, and realize the new codebase already struggles with maintainability. Then you ask what you could have done differently. Those real-life coding experiences teach you how to design code, architect code, and write better code.

Paul also suggests that students use AI tools but not blindly. Do not just accept whatever an AI generates. Instead, try to understand what came out, how it could have been done differently, and experiment with different approaches. Use the tools available but really understand what is going on and what options you have.

Some students and even practicing developers worry that advanced tools might eliminate their future role as developers. Paul says that nobody knows exactly how things will look in the future because tools get better almost every day now. But AI tools are just tools. Someone needs to drive them and come up with the ideas they should build. Plus, the tools at present are far from a state where you can hand them a task, never look at it again, and have everything work perfectly. Substantial hand-holding is involved.

"Is our daily work going to change? Very likely," Paul says. "That's already happening." But he tries to see this change as a positive thing. "It's a new tool that we can use. It makes certain parts of our job more fun, more interesting. You can get more things done in some ways and be open to it."

Why Java Works

At the end of the conversation, Paul answered a simple question — Why Java? What makes it great? — with a simple and direct answer: "Java is the perfect balance of developer productivity and runtime performance."

That balance matters where Paul works at Netflix. But it also matters for students learning their first language, for teams building enterprise applications, and for developers choosing tools that will sustain long careers. Paul's career started with Java applets 20 years ago when he bought a book and started hacking away. The language and platform has evolved dramatically since then, moving from client-side applets to powering massive backend services that stream entertainment to millions globally via Netflix. Through all that change, the core appeal remains — you can build things efficiently for many platforms and those things run fast.

Paul Bakker: X, LinkedIn

Duke's Corner Java Podcast: Libsyn

Jim Grisanzio: X, LinkedIn, Website

JavaOne: Register | Sessions

In this conversation, Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with developer advocates Marit van Dijk and Anton Arhipov from JetBrains about the 25th anniversary of IntelliJ IDEA, the latest features of the IDE, Anton's upcoming session at JavaOne in March, and their perspectives on JavaOne as the premier conference for Java developers.

25 Years of IntelliJ IDEA

Just as Java turned 30 this year, IntelliJ IDEA is now 25 years young! Not every technology survives that long, and even fewer thrive while doing it. But both Java and IntelliJ IDEA are doing just that. The secret to this longevity for IntelliJ IDEA, according to Marit van Dijk and Anton Arhipov, comes down to something simple but demanding — staying current with the Java ecosystem and engaging the massive Java development community around the world. The main reason for their success is the huge effort engineered into the platform to produce the technologies that developers need while at the same time staying with all the bleeding edge stuff happening inside the Java community.

This commitment reaches beyond just supporting new Java versions. The IntelliJ IDEA team works on preview features even though specifications sometimes change during the preview process. When Oracle moved to a six-month release cycle for OpenJDK about eight years ago, IntelliJ adapted smoothly since their teams were already involved with the OpenJDK community. Marit says that new release cycle actually streamlined their work. They already knew about preview features and could start developing support upfront, not at the very last moment. This let them iterate alongside the community rather than chasing after it.

The company also collaborates directly with other community members — such as framework developers, build tool teams at Maven and Gradle, and even Google — to implement best practices straight into the IDE. Maven 4 is not even released yet, but IntelliJ already has support ready with migration features to help developers make the transition. Anton says that this effort means that support is not only working with the new version of a technology but also being smart about how you use it. The IDE catches outdated patterns and deprecated APIs and also offers quick fixes to migrate code with a single keystroke.

First and Lasting Impressions

Both Marit and Anton started working at JetBrains years after they had already become devoted IntelliJ users. Their first impressions of the IDE moved them deeply and remain with them today.

For Anton, his first reaction to using IntelliJ IDEA was immediate. "In one word, wow, this is smart. This is an IDE that understands code."  That intelligence in the software became the foundation of his relationship with the technology.

Marit had a similar experience when she switched to IntelliJ IDEA. She had used other IDEs before and they were perfectly fine, but IntelliJ seemed different. "I found that it was actively helpful with the code inspections and quick fixes and helping me when my code didn't compile or preventing me from making mistakes. And I was sad that I didn't switch earlier, like years earlier. And I've been raving about it ever since. And now they pay me to do that. So, you know, everybody wins."

AI and the Future of Development

As usual in these conversation, we turned to artificial intelligence and its growing role in software development. Anton will explore this topic in depth at his JavaOne session titled "Spec-Driven Development With AI Agents: From High-Level Requirements to Working Software." Everyone knows that the AI landscape is changing fast, but things are actually getting simpler, Anton says. Developers can now get better results with less effort and less complex workflows using AI agents. Models are improving at guessing developer intent and reducing the need for careful constraint-heavy prompting.

But Anton sets realistic expectations about AI. When asked whether his session targets junior or senior developers, he says that "we are all juniors in this regard." The field is so new that nobody can claim years of expertise with AI development tools.

Marit emphasizes another crucial principle about AI-generated code. "You are still responsible for the code," whether you write it or an agent writes it. It has your name on it. AI does not diminish developer accountability or the need for developers to remain highly skilled in their craft.

Anton adds another dimension about integrating AI with development tools. "AI without the IDE is kind of unreliable, but the IDE without AI is unproductive." The key, he says, is to fuse these things together leveraging the benefits of both for better productivity. The context the IDE provides and its understanding of your project structure and dependencies makes AI suggestions more relevant and actionable.

JavaOne: Where the Community Comes Together

Anton will be presenting at JavaOne 2026 in March, and both he and Marit shared their perspectives on what makes the conference special.

For Marit, JavaOne has always been unique. The "who's who of Java" will be there, she says. Last year's conference-ending "Meet the Architects" panel particularly stood out. The audience could ask Oracle Java architects basically everything about Java for over an hour. This kind of access to the core engineers building and shaping the future of the language is something you would not normally get at any other conference.

Anton shares his view that JavaOne has always been the conference to get all the news about Java. He has always viewed the event as the place where you get condensed information about what's going on with Java all in one place — the language, the platform, the standards, the frameworks, and the community.

Community and Looking Forward

Marit and Anton maintain close relationships with the developer community through conferences and Java User Groups. Marit says that they have many JUGs in the Netherlands, and many of them invite her to come and speak at their meetups throughout the year. Also, when they travel somewhere for a conference, they look for opportunities to combine that trip with local JUGs to speak there and connect with people. This direct engagement with the open Java community lets Marit and Anton talk to developers directly, see how they can help them better, understand what developers are struggling with, and take that feedback back to the engineering teams. The same authenticity extends to how JetBrains approaches IntelliJ development. The engineering team maintains close relationships with framework developers and library maintainers and OpenJDK to ensure that when new versions release, IntelliJ users have good support from day one.

As IntelliJ IDEA celebrates 25 years, the development continues. They keep releasing new features with every version: the Spring Debugger that helps developers understand their Spring projects at runtime, Command Completion that enables developers to perform commands without memorizing shortcuts, and more. The anniversary celebrations for the teams have included parties with cakes featuring old logos, a game plugin that lets developers play video games while AI generates their code, and social media campaigns engaging the global community. For developers curious about IntelliJ IDEA, Marit and Anton encourage people to subscribe to the JetBrains YouTube channel where they regularly produce videos explaining new features.

This 25-year milestone represents more than just history. It represents an ongoing commitment to understand code, support developers, build the Java community, and evolve alongside the entire ecosystem. This pattern is pervasive among Java developers and also the many companies offering developers advanced tools. The smart IDE that so impressed Anton and Marit years ago continues to get smarter — right along with many other tools and technologies that are growing as a result of the Java platform itself.

Anton Arhipov: X , BlueSky, Linkedin

Marit van Dijk: Website, Linkedin, BlueSky, X 

Jim Grisanzio: X, Linkedin

Duke's Corner Java Podcast: Libsyn

Oracle Java Developer Relations: Inside.java, Dev.Java, Learn.java

Specific Topics Discussed: IntelliJ IDEA 25th Birthday, The Java Dukes, What's new in IntelliJ IDEA 2025.3, Spring Debugger, Command Completion

Summary

Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Chris Hermansen, a Java developer, consultant, and data analyst from Canada. Chris discovered Java in the 1990s and was drawn to its free accessibility and object-oriented design. He particularly appreciated Java's straightforward single inheritance model over C++'s complexity. But Chris's path to technology came through mathematics rather than computer science. He identifies streams as Java's most transformative feature for data analysis work and praises how it improved code readability and maintainability. On consulting, Chris cautions against Silicon Valley mantras like "fail often" when applied outside prototyping contexts, and he observes cultural differences in how engineers approach problem-solving with some preferring abstract discussion while others focusing on concrete data. Chris emphasizes that technology work remains fundamentally human and stresses the importance of listening, maintaining humanity in professional life, and avoiding corporate stereotypes. For students, he notes the differences between learning with modern IDEs versus the command line tools of his era when he learned to code, so he advises that new learners to try multiple approaches to deepen their understanding. His core message, which became the episode's title, is simple: "Don't be afraid to create."

Discovering Java in the 1990s

Chris discovered Java in the mid-1990 when Java was announced while working as a data analyst. "Java came along and it was free to use. It wasn't open source at that point, but it was free to use," he says. "And it really intrigued me because of its object-oriented approach to things, which was something that didn't come with the platform we were working on." Unlike the purchased software products he was using at the time, Java offered a free and accessible alternative that promised serious long-term value.

He also appreciated how Java's design avoided the complexities of C++, especially the problems with multiple inheritance. He and a colleague had been discussing moving from Pascal to either C or C++, but his colleague had concerns about C++'s complexity, particularly around multiple inheritance. "The first thing that really jumped out to me was the straightforward single inheritance pathway and the use of interfaces to define contractual relations between code," Chris says. Java's approach to inheritance immediately stood out as cleaner and more maintainable.

Features like array bounds checking and interfaces for defining contractual relationships between code further convinced him he was learning something that would age well. "I felt that I was learning something that would wear well over time. I wouldn't turn around and look at what I'd done 10 or 15 or 20 years later and say, yuck, what was I thinking?" After committing to Java and sticking with it through the learning process, he found it repaid his effort many times over. "I liked it and I stuck with it, and I found it paid me back enormously for my investment in learning."

Career Path Through Mathematics

Chris's path to technology came through math rather than traditional computer science. He actually stumbled into science during the registration process at school in the 1970s and eventually pursued math after deciding against engineering. His career took him through various mathematical applications, including consulting and data analysis positions in forestry.

Java's Evolution: Streams and Beyond

Regarding Java's evolution, Chris identified streams as the biggest feature improvement for his work. When asked about new features that have been useful in his applications, he immediately identifies streams as transformative. "I mean, streams was the big one. Streams just made a whole difference to the way you would handle data," he says.

He contrasts the old approach of writing hundreds of lines of nested for loops with the more elegant stream-based approach: "And so streams has just made that a whole lot easier. And the code is so much more readable and maintainable than the old 500 line do loops that we used to have in Fortran that turned into the 375 line for loops in Java. Anyway, so streams is a big one, a really big one for me. The biggest, I would say."

He also valued the introduction of templates (generics) in Java 5 or 6, which represented a significant evolution in the language and allowed applying libraries to custom classes. He praised the Java community for keeping the platform and ecosystem viable, noting that the combination of an active developer community and a satisfied user base creates a virtuous cycle that keeps the platform evolving and improving: "There's enough Java programmers out there, enough people interested in the continuing viability of Java that they keep it going, that they modernize it, that they solve new problems with it, that they make it perform better than it ever has before." He added a "big shout out to the garbage collection people that do that amazing stuff," acknowledging the often-invisible work that performance engineers at Oracle do to make Java faster and more efficient for developers.

Throughout the discussion, Chris talked at length about developers, the user community, and the technology. He has a nice habit of mixing the issues seamlessly. Check out this gem below where he beautifully concluded that Java is far more than a language because it's really a movement.

"The user community is, generally speaking, pretty satisfied with [Java]. And it's a broad enough user community. It's got people like me. It's got people still doing desktop Java. It's got people using it on servers. And there's a whole tool ecosystem out there. Personally, I prefer working right at the command line. I always have. But the application that I mentioned we built using NetBeans, which came out of Sun originally. And it's quite a nice IDE. I don't think it's the most popular one. It doesn't really matter. It's still a very nice one. And it gave us a big part of that long-term support. And lately, I find myself using other JVM languages. So it's not just Java. It's the JVM that underpins it, that has permitted a flowering of alternative approaches to things that, generally speaking, work very well together with Java. So, it's a pretty cool thing. It's a movement. It's not just a programming language."

Consulting, Professionalism, and Cultural Differences

On consulting and professionalism, Chris stresses the importance of contributing to the team to best serve customers. He cautions against embracing some Silicon Valley software mantras — such as "fail early, fail often" — when applied outside their intended prototyping context. "And I know failure is a thing that people talk about in software development. Fail early, fail often. But you don't hear consultants saying fail often. It's not a good look for a consulting company," he says.

Instead, Chris focuses on engineering being technically excellent and using open communications to help ensure the team's success. "In a consulting organization, you really have to be a team player," he says. He clarifies that getting prototypes out for feedback certainly has merit: "Get something out there and [letting] people throw rocks at it and [recording] what they say [that's] false and recognize that, okay, you failed, but at least you moved the ball down the field. I'm a huge fan of prototyping."

Throughout the years in his career Chris also observed cultural differences in problem-solving approaches around the world. He says that some cultures prefer abstract discussion while others focus on concrete data. "Never mind all these grand theories. Let's actually look what we have. And really, you know, like don't go down that rabbit hole either. Look at what you have and base things on the reality that you know about," he advises. He warns against getting lost in theoretical discussions: "Resist the old, you know, the medieval concept of how many angels on the head of a pin kind of thing. Just don't go there."

The Human Side of Technology Work

Chris emphasizes that technology work remains fundamentally human. Near the end of the conversation, Chris focuses what he sees as most important: "I would just emphasize maybe that we're human beings here and we're driven by our human desires and wills. And as you rightly pointed out, cultural things roll into that," he says. Despite all the technical discussion about tools, languages, methods, and preferences, the work is ultimately done by human beings with human needs and motivations.

Cultural factors, listening skills, and collaborative team approaches matter as much as technical competence. "Remember, you spend a long time of your life at your job. And so, it's important that that contributes to your humanity and that your humanity contributes back." He encourages developers to remember their humanity throughout their careers, to contribute meaningfully to their teams and communities, and to avoid becoming caricatures of the latest corporate culture. "It's really important to remember that you're part of a group of human beings here. You don't want to be a Dilbert comic," he says, using the comic strip as a reference point for the dehumanized corporate worker trapped in absurd bureaucracy.

On the importance of listening, Chris shares wisdom from a sign he saw years ago: "If God had intended man to speak more than he listened, he would have given him two mouths and one ear. Listen more, say less." When discussing custom solutions versus off-the-shelf tools, and after discussing how being familiar with algorithms allows you to blend approaches for better solutions, Chris delivers what became the title of the episode: "Basically, you know, if there's not something off the shelf that —  Don't be afraid to create!" This is a message that Chris encourages all developers to embrace because they have such advanced skills right at their fingertips.

Advice for Students: Learning Then and Now

That creation framework extends to Chris's advice to students learning software development. Students today face different challenges than he did decades ago. Chris compared his learning experience years ago with his daughter's more recent computer science education. Modern students learn differently through sophisticated IDEs that suggest improvements and refactor code automatically, while Chris and his colleagues back in the day learned using only a command line, a text editor, and a compiler.

"The difference is really striking between the two because the only tool we had was the command line, the text editor, and the compiler," he says. Modern IDEs provide capabilities like automatic refactoring and code suggestions that fundamentally change what students focus on during their education. He notes that learning with modern tools creates almost a different world than learning in his era: "And so it was really almost learning a different discipline for her than it was for me."

He advises students to try multiple approaches to problem-solving and to explore all their options to apply their technical skills in many diverse fields. "And I think if there's a lesson to be taken from that, sometimes it might be fun once you've learned how to do something in the IDEs to try and do it the old way and see what it's like just creating from nothing, you know, and starting out that way. And vice versa, guys like me that always insist on using VI at the command line, we should learn an IDE. It's time."

Finally, Chris reflects on the value of learning multiple approaches to solving problems. This goes beyond just technical skills to understanding the problem itself more deeply: "I think learning several different ways to solve a problem ultimately teaches you more about the problem. And learning more about the problem, I think, teaches you a bit about yourself and how you go about solving things and your value to your organization." During the entire conversation on technology, Chris consistently wove in the human element. We are people, after all. We're just using digital tools to create. 

Duke's Corner Java Podcast 
https://dukescorner.libsyn.com/site  

Jim Grisanzio, Host, Duke's Corner 
https://x.com/jimgris | https://grisanzio.com/duke/  

Barry's teaching philosophy centers on passion, enthusiasm, and visualization. He works to help students see programming concepts as complete mental pictures rather than just syntax. His classroom approach emphasizes active interactions with as many questions as possible. He tries to create what he calls a party atmosphere rather than a boring traditional lecture setting. He believes strongly in meeting students where they are and encouraging those who love the material while supporting those whose passions may lie elsewhere.

What distinguishes Barry's perspective is his view of computer science as an art form. He frequently compares elegant code to works of art. He asks students who question the practical value of certain technical concepts whether they would ask the same question in a course about the Mona Lisa. This artistic perspective extends to his appreciation of Java as well. He marvels at the language's thoughtful design, where features fit together as a unified whole rather than random pieces of technology thrown together haphazardly.

Java's appeal for Barry grows from multiple sources. The language's backward compatibility has been crucial for his work as an author and a teacher. He says that only one program broke across multiple editions of his books over the years. He contrasts this long term stability with other platforms that change frequently and force him to spend time fixing previously working code. The elegance and careful thought behind Java's design resonates deeply with him. He appreciates the early decisions about inheritance and interfaces and the entire evolution of Java from the engineers under the stewardship of architects like Brian Goetz at Oracle.

Barry says that the six-month release cycle introduced in recent years has injected new life into the Java ecosystem. He sees the platform as self-sustaining now with strong leadership that shows no signs of fading. Living near New York City, he says that financial institutions depend on Java's industrial strength reliability for obvious reasons. The technology serves two audiences well, he says, those who need rock-solid, enterprise-grade systems and those like himself who appreciate the beauty of well-crafted software.

When asked why Java is so great, Barry says: "I guess the other reason is that it's good for industrial strength programming. People in the area of the world where I live in, close to New York City, in the financial district, rely on it. It's just not breakable the way other platforms are."

If you ever have a chance to take a software development class from Barry Burd, take it. You'll love it. 

Barry Burd

https://x.com/allmycode

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-burd/recent-activity/all/

Jim Grisanzio 

https://x.com/jimgris 

https://grisanzio.com 

Duke's Corner Java Podcast 

https://dukescorner.libsyn.com/site/ 

https://grisanzio.com/duke/

 "I was shocked and honored — very humbled!" Mattias said about being recognized for his lifetime of achievements in the Java community by Sharat Chander of Oracle's Java Developer Relations Team.

Mattias, a Stockholm-based engineer and long-time leader of the Stockholm Java User Group, shares his journey with Java, from its early days to its current role in modern tech ecosystems. He also talks about the evolution of Jfokus, a leading annual Java conference he organizes, which has grown from a small Java user group into a major gathering of over 2,000 developers from diverse backgrounds around the world. 

Mattias highlights Java's enduring appeal, driven by its robust JVM, backward compatibility, and vibrant community. He also reflects on the six-month release cycle, calling it "brilliant" for its balance of stability and innovation, and shares insights on mentoring young developers and using AI to stay updated.

When talking about how students learning programming will inevitably encounter Java due to its widespread use in the industry, Mattias said, "Sooner or later they will end up with Java anyway." 

Finally, the episode underscores the unique culture of the Java community and Jfokus as a conference for its blending of culture, professionalism, and a welcoming atmosphere.

Mattias Karlsson https://x.com/matkar  

Jim Grisanzio https://x.com/jimgris  

Duke's Corner https://dukescorner.libsyn.com/site  

Podcast Archives, Transcripts, Quotes https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com/duke

In this conversation, which is part of an ongoing series honoring Java pioneers, Venkat expresses profound humility about his accomplishments and credits industry giants and his passion for learning and sharing technical knowledge. He reflects on leaving his own company years ago to focus on teaching and technology, writing books like Cruising Along with Java, and speaking at over 45 conferences and 30 Java User Groups — every single year! Venkat has one of the most impressive global speaking schedules of anyone in the Java community.

Venkat praises Java User Group leaders as "unsung heroes" for their organizational efforts and highlights Java 25's evolving features like structured concurrency, scoped values, pattern matching, and the instance main method, which helps simplify the learning process for new developers. Venkat also cites Java's agile six-month release cycle, which helps improve the smooth evolution of Java, increases developer engagement, and makes Java more suitable for today's rapidly expanding technology markets.

Emphasizing teaching as reciprocal learning, Venkat advises students to engage mentors and senior developers to collaborate with juniors to help welcome into the community. He stresses that knowledge grows when shared. His mantra? Teaching fuels learning and he lives that ethic every day as he interacts with thousands of developers around the world.

Venkat Subramaniam https://x.com/venkat_s  

Duke's Corner Java Podcast https://dukescorner.libsyn.com/site/  

Jim Grisanzio https://x.com/jimgris  

Bruno Souza is known as the "JavaMan" from Brazil and that nickname started back at Sun when Java was announced and Bruno started evangelizing the technology. Bruno's message to the community was "Open Standards and Open Source" as he began his community building efforts around Java. He continually brought to Brazil FOSS and Standards experts for community discussions, and he advocated for a standards-based Open Source implementation of Java that would pass the TCK.

Bruno left Sun and then returned, and he also joined the JCP (Java Community Process). Now all these years later we have OpenJDK, and open JCP, and hundreds of independent JUGs that can participate in community building and also Java development.

"Maybe my greatest pride, I think, is the idea of the Java User Groups community," Bruno says. "We have OpenJDK for development and the JCP for standards, but for me the real Java community is the Java User Groups! These are all volunteers who meet and help others participate and learn."

Bruno in recent years has been talking a lot about building reputation and career by embracing the open-source lifestyle — writing code in Java, contributing to Open Source, and helping build the community itself. Since our work lives in public mailing lists and open-source code repositories, we earn credibility by being visible, contributing, engaging the community, and helping others get involve as well, Bruno says. 

Bruno advises that career is a long-term project: "The more you work on it, the more you grow, the more results you have. So, the sooner you start the better. This is not a sprint! This takes time."

Getting back to Java itself, Bruno, like most Java developers, prefers the 6-month release cadence over the older system of multi-year development and release cycles. There is a constant flow of technology now which allows for more interactions between the Oracle engineers and engineers in the community.

"Everything you see today in Java is possible because of the 6-month release process. I just loved it when the guys did that! I think it's amazing! The fact that we now have two releases per year changed Java. I think we're positioning Java to be even stronger in the years to come. I'm very excited about the whole thing," Bruno says.

Throughout this conversation Bruno provides a wonderful history of Java since he's been involved from the very beginning! "People don't remember that Java was a community from the very beginning!" Bruno says. "We were able to look at the source code from the very beginning and that allowed us to build the community from the very beginning with lots of other companies joining." And then the JCP was created to allow Sun and the community to discuss the standardization of Java. And then OpenJDK was a huge step because now Java would be everywhere with Oracle leading and building the community. "Java is more participative today under Oracle than during the Sun times."

"Java + Open Source + Community: That's what grows our career. That's what grows Java too!" — Bruno Souza

Bruno Souza
https://x.com/brjavaman 
https://x.com/SouJava 

Duke's Corner Java Podcast 
https://dukescorner.libsyn.com 

Jim Grisanzio 
https://x.com/jimgris 
https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/ 

Jim Grisanzio
https://x.com/jimgris 
https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/ 

This conversation covers the evolution of Java, the constant polishing of the library, the upcoming Java 25 release, the six-month release cycle, improvements in the Java language to make the technology more beginner friendly, teaching methodologies, conferences vs unconferences, and also timeless task-driven learning methods for students and developers to keep their skills sharp. Also, Cay has been writing books about Java for decades and years ago he was instrumental in initially getting Java integrated into the curriculum for the computer science AP exam in the United States.

"One of the reasons why Java is still so vibrant 30 years in is that there is a constant stream of low-level innovation going on. It's pretty amazing."

Cay Horstmann
https://horstmann.com/ 

Duke's Corner Java Podcast
https://dukescorner.libsyn.com 
https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com/podcasts/ 
https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com/72-cay-horstmann-txt/ 

Jim Grisanzio
https://x.com/jimgris
https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/ 

In this conversation Heinz previews some JEPs in the upcoming Java 25 release, he comments on the value of the 6-month Java release cycle, he outlines how he's contributed code to OpenJDK (and how others can too!), he offers some detailed advice to students getting involved in software development for the first time, and he talks at length about the opportunities for developers who participate at the JCrete Unconference. "I have seen people whose entire careers got revolutionized just by coming to JCrete once. It's really life changing!"

Heinz Kabutz
https://x.com/heinzkabutz
https://www.javaspecialists.eu/
https://www.jcrete.org/
https://x.com/heinzkabutz/status/1920855230910005540

OpenJDK
https://openjdk.org/

Duke's Corner Java Podcast
https://dukescorner.libsyn.com

Jim Grisanzio
https://x.com/jimgris
https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/

Nate has a passion for learning and here's his advice for young developers and engineering students. "The fundamentals can't be skipped! And they take time to learn! You just have to put in those hours to understand the basics, and then you can graduate to the more complicated stuff."

Nate tripped over Java a bit in school and joined his first Java project right in his first job. Once he heard about this new Java project, he said: "Heck, yeah! I want in on that!"

Nate Schutta

https://x.com/ntschutta

https://bsky.app/profile/nts.bsky.social

Duke's Corner Java Podcast

https://dukescorner.libsyn.com

Jim Grisanzio

https://x.com/jimgris

https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com 

Simon: https://x.com/simas_ch

Jim: https://x.com/jimgris

Jim: https://twitter.com/jimgris
Praveen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohanpraveen/

The conversation spans all of Bert's experiences as a software developer, including hacking and gaming as a six-year old, contributing to the computer lab fire in school, blowing out the family's phone bill with his first modem, getting an advanced CS education at university, engaging the Java community globally, and building his own software company. Bert also offers some interesting advice for how people can continue learning and growing and contributing to the community at Java events. He also details why Java is special and why developers embrace the technology: "Java is one of the only languages I know of that has been active and current for so long. And one of the keys is the marvel of engineering in the Java Virtual Machine." 

Bert: https://twitter.com/bjschrijver

Jim: https://twitter.com/jimgris 

Richard: https://twitter.com/RichardFichtner

JCON: https://twitter.com/jcon_conference

Jim: https://twitter.com/jimgris 

Mohammed on Twitter https://twitter.com/laytoun

Jim on Twitter https://twitter.com/jimgris

Marit on Twitter https://twitter.com/MaritvanDijk77

Marit on the Web https://maritvandijk.com/

Jim on Twitter https://twitter.com/jimgris

Jeanne on Twitter: @jeanneboyarsky
Jim on Twitter: @jimgris 

https://inside.java/2023/12/21/seasons-thanks/

Shar on Twitter: @Sharat_Chander
Jim on Twitter: @jimgris

Get Stéphane on Twitter @snicoll and get Jim on Twitter @jimgris

Kaya Weers, Java Developer
https://twitter.com/KayaWeers

Jim Grisanzio, Java Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Brian Vermeer, Java Champion
https://twitter.com/BrianVerm

Jim Grisanzio, Java Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Images from JavaOne Las Vegas 2022
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAdP6P

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/Jlk6Dq9dB2c

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

Miro Wengner, Java Champion
https://twitter.com/miragemiko

Jim Grisanzio, Java Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Images from JavaOne Las Vegas 2022
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAdP6P

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/FT4qpZRH2xU

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

Rodrigo Graciano
https://twitter.com/rodrigograciano

Jim Grisanzio, Java Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/SaJ2Lk7euPQ

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

Mala Gupta, Java Champion
https://twitter.com/eMalaGupta

Jim Grisanzio, Java Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/GBBoeoiMUFQ

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

Richard Fichtner, CEO, XDEV Software
https://twitter.com/RichardFichtner

Jim Grisanzio, Duke's Corner Podcast Host
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/Icf8AbfMAVw

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

Chris Bensen, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/chrisbensen

Jim Grisanzio, Duke's Corner Podcast Host
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/gNkSQIJfxjw

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

Bruno Souza, Brazilian JavaMan
https://twitter.com/brjavaman

Jim Grisanzio, Duke's Corner Podcast Host
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/3XDgaxx6iu0

Award Presentation at JavaOne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g59PMSk1oAE&t=2534s

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with JavaOne 2022 speaker Matt Raible from Colorado.

Matt is a Java Champion, a Duke's Choice Award winner, and Open Source developer, and a developer advocate. He previews his session at JavaOne on Micro Frontends for Java Developers. The conversation also gets into the Java community, how Matt got into development, and his contributions to the Open Source community. 

JavaOne 2022 October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022: News Updates at Inside Java

Matt Raible, Java Champion, Open Source Developer at OktaDev

• @mraible

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with JavaOne 2022 speaker Josh Long from San Francisco.

Josh is a Java Champion and a Spring Developer Advocate. In this conversation he previews upcoming session on Kubernetes Native Java. He also talks about his experiences becoming a developer and working with the Java community around the world.  

JavaOne 2022 October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022: News Updates at Inside Java

Josh Long, Java Champion & Spring Developer Advocate

• @starbuxman

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with JavaOne 2022 speaker Rustam Mehmandarov from Oslo, Norway.

Rustam is a Java Champion and also Chief Engineer at Computas AS in Oslo. In this conversation he previews his three upcoming sessions at JavaOne, which explore building cloud native apps in Java. The discussion also covers Rustam's experiences in the Java community and at various conferences around the world.  

JavaOne 2022 October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022: News Updates at Inside Java

Rustam Mehmandarov, Java Champion, Chief Engineer at Computas AS

• @rmehmandarov

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with JavaOne 2022 speaker Sander Mak from The Netherlands.

Sander is a Java Champion, an author, and an engineer at Picnic. In this conversation he previews his upcoming session at JavaOne — Streamlining Large-Scale Java Development Using Error Prone. He also talks about the Java community and his experiences becoming a developer. 

JavaOne 2022 October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022: News Updates at Inside Java

Sander Mak, Java Champion, Author, Developer at Picnic 

• @sander_mak

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Java developer and JavaOne 2022 speaker Emily Jiang from the UK.

Emily is a Java Champion and Developer Advocate. She's doing three sessions at JavaOne in October on microservices and cloud native development and she previews them in this discussion. She also talks about her experiences with the Java community and JavaOne. 

JavaOne 2022 from October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022 Updates at Inside Java

Emily Jiang, Developer Advocate, IBM 

• @emilyfhjiang

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Java developer and JavaOne 2022 speaker Oleg Šelajev from Tartu, Estonia.

Oleg works in developer relations at AtomicJar. He's also a Java Champion and a regular conference speaker. In this conversation Oleg previews his upcoming session at JavaOne — Delightful Integration Tests with Testcontainers. 

JavaOne 2022 from October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022 Updates at Inside Java

Oleg Šelajev, Developer Relations at AtomicJar 

• @shelajev

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Java developer and JavaOne 2022 speaker Mark Heckler from St. Louis. Missouri in the United States.

Mark is a software developer and developer advocate at Microsoft, a Java Champion, a conference speaker, and an author. Check out his book Spring Boot: Up and Running. In this conversation Mark previews his session at JavaOne — Das Boot: Diving into Debugging Spring Boot Applications. Mark also talks about the value of technical conferences and the community. 

JavaOne 2022 from October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne Update 1
• JavaOne Update 2

Mark Heckler, Principal Cloud Developer Advocate for Java/JVM Languages at Microsoft

• @mkheck

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Java developer and JavaOne 2022 speaker Bruno Souza from Brazil. 

Bruno is a Java Champion, he's been a board member of the Open Source Initiative, he's on the Executive Committee of the Java Community Process, and he leads the SouJava community in Brazil.

Bruno has been building Java communities for decades, and in recent years he's been helping Java developers build their careers. That's the topic of this podcast and also Bruno's session at JavaOne in October in Las Vegas.

JavaOne 2022 from October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne Update 1
• JavaOne Update 2

Bruno Souza, Brazilian JavaMan

• @brjavaman

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

Chandra Guntur, Distinguished Engineer, Technical Fellow, BNY Mellon 

• @cguntur on Twitter https://twitter.com/CGuntur

Java Development & Community

• OpenJDK https://openjdk.java.net/
• Inside Java https://inside.java/
• Dev.Java https://dev.java/
• @java Twitter https://twitter.com/java

Duke's Corner Podcast

• Jim Grisanzio, Host, Java Developer Relations
  @jimgris on Twitter https://twitter.com/jimgris

Venkat Subramaniam, Founder, Agile Developer

@venkat_s on Twitter https://twitter.com/venkat_s

Background on Pattern Marching

JEP 305: Pattern Matching for instanceof (Preview)
Pattern Matching with Gavin Bierman — Inside Java Podcast 17
Pattern Matching in Java 17 and Beyond

Java Development & Community

OpenJDK https://openjdk.java.net/
Inside Java https://inside.java/
Dev.Java https://dev.java/
@java Twitter https://twitter.com/java

Duke's Corner Podcast

Jim Grisanzio, Host, Java Developer Relations
@jimgris on Twitter https://twitter.com/jimgris

Communities are about people. So, that's what we'll be talking about here with Java developers. Who's doing really cool work? Who's solving the toughest problems? Who's creating new opportunities? Who's new? Who's been around forever? Everyone has something to contribute. It'll be great fun. 

We've already engaged with the Java community in many previous episodes over the years, so we're looking forward to even more Java from here on in! 

Welcome to the team from Sharat Chander.

Java Development & Community

OpenJDK https://openjdk.java.net/
Inside Java https://inside.java/
Dev.Java https://dev.java/
@java Twitter https://twitter.com/java

Duke's Corner Podcast

Jim Grisanzio, Host, Java Developer Relations
@jimgris on Twitter https://twitter.com/jimgris

Jim Grisanzio talks with John Spurling, a JVM engineer at Twitter, at UnVoxxed Hawaii 2020 about debugging and the mental process of solving difficult technical issues.

John Spurling, Twitter
https://twitter.com/synecdotal 

Jim Grisanzio, Java Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris 

Video on YouTube
https://youtu.be/6dwOPQSJwaI 

UnVoxxed Hawaii
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmLF23KD 
https://twitter.com/UnVoxxedHawaii 
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX8CzqL3ArzU0APb6QgpMMTMPEz1jok5Q 

Seymour Cray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Cray 

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning 
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013 

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Janakiram MSV about some upcoming trends to look out for in 2022 in cloud computing. Janakiram is an industry analyst and architect based in Hyderabad, India, and he gave the keynote at Oracle Developer Day India in the fall of 2021. Video on YouTube.

In this archives episode Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Аlina Yurenko from Oracle on the GraalVM Project. The conversation took place in February 2020 at the Jfokus Java conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Alina talks about the state of the GraalVM project, the community, and Jfokus. Also see the video on YouTube.

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Chip Baber from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) about the Oracle Code Innovate Program. The conversation centers around building the cloud community by working directly with developers — that's side by side, hands on coding collaboration — on real cloud projects for active customers.

The program, which started in 2018 with in-person sprints and moved virtual in 2020, uses a flexible Agile framework that spans a week of interactions, such as planning, training, ideation, coding, standups, demos, etc. What's great about the program is that all sides learn — the customer's developers get more direct experience coding in OCI, the customer's executive management gets needed projects initiated that can be evolved to eventual deployment, and Oracle gets valuable engineering feedback that can help improve OCI. Plus, it's fun. People at all levels who contribute to the project are really passionate about it. Listen in to hear why.  

Video Interview on YouTube
https://youtu.be/_qTnhoZ1vKI 

Article on Oracle News Connect
https://www.oracle.com/news/connect/groundbreakers-podcast-oracle-virtual-code-innovate.html 

Chip Baber, Senior Manager, Code Innovate, Emerging Technology Oracle Cloud
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chipbaber/ 

Contact the Code Innovate Team
codeinnovate_us_grp@oracle.com 

Latest Video Review of the Virtual Code Innovate Program
https://youtu.be/BcNuD8fm62k 

Dozens of Videos on Oracle Code Innovate
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPIzp-E1msrZMCfSHbKgLK3KWsNM9JB9a 

Chip Baber's YouTube Tech & Code Channel
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsnBif_-5JnA8Hzvp8e1bQ3fo6VEvYEB0 

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/ 
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 
https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/ 

Photos from Live Code Innovate Events: 2018-2019
Oracle and GE Digital Bangalore https://flic.kr/s/aHsmtEb4XB 
Oracle and McAfee Bangalore https://flic.kr/s/aHsmsufTbW 
Oracle and Cisco San Jose https://flic.kr/s/aHsmBpBhVk 
Oracle and Cisco Bangalore https://flic.kr/s/aHsmDKBpPY 

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Simon Coter and Simon Hayler from the Oracle Linux and Virtualization Product Management organization about Oracle VirtualBox, the community, the roadmap, and integration with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

Simon Coter, Director, Oracle Linux and Virtualization
https://twitter.com/scoter80

https://twitter.com/simonhayler1965

VirtualBox for Dummies
https://blogs.oracle.com/scoter/post/ebook-virtualbox-for-dummies

Oracle Virtual Box
https://www.virtualbox.org/

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
https://www.oracle.com/cloud/

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure with Oracle VM VirtualBox
https://blogs.oracle.com/virtualization/post/journey-to-oracle-cloud-infrastructure-with-oracle-vm-virtualbox
https://www.oracle.com/a/ocom/docs/oracle-vm-vb-oci-export-20190502-5480003.pdf

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
https://developer.oracle.com/team/
https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Oracle ACE Director Rita Nunez from Argentina to preview the upcoming 2021 LAOUC Evento de Primavera November 9-10. The event will be held online in Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and it's free and open to developers globally. Technologies discussed will be Oracle Database, security, APEX, Java, development tools, cloud, and more. Get involved here.

Rita Nunez, Oracle ACE Director

• https://twitter.com/ritan2000 

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris 
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/ 
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/ 

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Gabriele Provinciali, an engineer and solutions architect at Oracle in Rome, about smart and safe city models built with Lego Bricks, Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, and a variety of IoT edge sensors all connected to the Oracle Cloud. Twitter Thread. Video on YouTube.

Oracle News Connect Article

• Little towns, big ideas: How scale models can imagine smarter and safer cities

Gabriele Provinciali, Solution Architect, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriele/
  
• https://twitter.com/GabbaPro

ProximaSafe: Joining the Dots in OCI to build a Stream Analysis Lab

• Part 1: Setting up the event-driven OCI components
• Part 2: From Edge to Serverless
• Part 3: Sensors, Pipelines and back to Edge
• YouTube Video: Oracle Proxima City

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Oracle ACE Director Francisco Alvarez Munoz about the upcoming APAC Oracle Groundbreakers APAC Virtual Tour. The event takes place over two weeks starting on November 22 and running through December 7. Thousands of developers are expected to participate along with 100 speakers talking about a variety of topics, such as Java, Database, Cloud, APEX, Developer Tools, Data Science, and more. The event schedule will be posted soon. Check the links below and get involved. Video on YouTube.

Francisco Alvarez Munoz, Oracle ACE Director & President of the APAC Oracle User Community

• https://twitter.com/fcomunoz
• https://twitter.com/apacouc
• https://apacgbt.mykommu.com/

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Mirela Ardelean about building the Oracle developer community and also the upcoming Oracle Groundbreakers EMEA Virtual Tour 2021 — October 15-29. There will be 70 speakers presenting Oracle technologies over 11 days to 10 UGs! Video on YouTube. Get involved with the event here.

Mirela Ardelean, Oracle ACE, Founder and VP of the Romanian Oracle User Group, Board member of EOUC

• https://twitter.com/Mirela_RoOUG
• http://ogbemea.com

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Cristina Cifuentes, Ph.D., who is the Director or Oracle Labs Australia. The conversation covers research and development in the labs, working with engineering teams at Oracle to ensure secure products, engaging university students on a FOSS project, and some history from Sun Microsystems as well. Video on YouTube.

Oracle News Connect Article

• Oracle Groundbreakers Podcast: Explore Oracle Labs Australia

Cristina Cifuentes, Ph.D., Founder & Director of Oracle Labs Australia

• https://twitter.com/criscifuentes
  
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcristinacifuentes/
• https://labs.oracle.com/pls/apex/f?p=labs:bio:0:21

University of Queensland and Oracle Cyber Security Project

• https://www.eait.uq.edu.au/news/article/uq-and-oracle-team-develop-world-class-cyber-security-experts
• https://github.com/uqcyber

Oracle Labs

• https://labs.oracle.com/pls/apex/labs/r/labs/intro

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

There are many times during this discussion with Monica Godoy where she expresses her passion for the Oracle Application Express (APEX) technology and also the APEX community. "APEX changed my life," she said, talking about how she could finally build the applications she wanted to using this innovative development tool. And it's a life changer for developers in the community as well because many developers around the world aren't shy about expressing their enthusiasm about Oracle APEX.

Monica is a product manager on the APEX team in Colombia, where she's lived her entire life. In this episode she gives an update on the latest bits in APEX 21.1 and she talks about how helpful the community has been around the world.

Full Video
https://twitter.com/oracleace/status/1445816680655982603 
https://youtu.be/cWbnacX_tKQ 

OpenJDK developer Joe Darcy previews his session at the upcoming Oracle Developer Live — Java Innovations. The event is September 14 and 16 and Joe's talk — What Every Java Programmer Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic — will be on the 16th. Keynote, nine sessions, and four hands-on labs. Don't miss it!  Video

Joe Darcy, Engineer, Java Platform Group, Oracle
https://twitter.com/jddarcy 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

In this conversation, Java Software Architect Paul Sandoz previews his talk at the upcoming conference Oracle Developer Live — Java Innovations. The event is on September 14 and 16 and Paul will be talking about The Vector API in JDK 17. Don't miss it! 24 speakers booked! Everyone will be there. Video

Register for Oracle Developer Live — Java Innovations: Building the Future Today: September 14 and 16

Paul Sandoz, Java Software Architect, Oracle
https://twitter.com/PaulSandoz

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

In this short conversation, Java developer Venkat Subramaniam previews his talk at the upcoming Oracle Developer Live — Java Innovations conference. The event is on September 14 and 16 and Venkat's session will be Making Use of Sealed Classes in Java. Don't miss it! Video.

Register for Oracle Developer Live — Java Innovations: Building the Future Today: September 14 and 16

Venkat Subramaniam, Founder Agile Developer, Inc.
https://twitter.com/venkat_s 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Oracle Developer Live — Java Innovations: Building the Future Today: September 14 and 16

In this short conversation Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro, Sr. Director of Java Product Management at Oracle, previews his two session at the upcoming Oracle Developer Live Java Innovations event in September. Aurelio will be talking about the new Java Management Service and also JDK 17. Video on YouTube

Register for Oracle Developer Live — Java Innovations: Building the Future Today: September 14 and 16
https://developer.oracle.com/developer-live/java-innovations-sep-2021/

Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro
https://twitter.com/aureliog

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio talks with Sandesh Rao and Sai Penumuru about the technology announcements at Sangam 2019 in Hyderabad and also the Sangam and OGYatra development community. In the discussion, Sai and Sandesh covered all the technology announcements Oracle made at the event, and all the community development activities that were taking place at the time. 

Video from the 2019 Interview
https://youtu.be/xvIlOlK0lek 

Sai Penumuru, President, AIOUG
https://twitter.com/sai_penumuru

Sandesh Rao, VP, AIOps, Oracle
https://twitter.com/sandeshr 

All India Oracle Users Group
http://www.aioug.org/ 

Sangam 19 Conference Website
http://www.aioug.org/sangam19/ 

Images from Sangam 19
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmJYoaz3 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio and Chris Bensen from Oracle Developer Relations preview the first in a series of unique hands-on labs. Starting on August 11 at 8 AM PST developers will have the opportunity to team up with Red Bull Racing Honda and Oracle in a hands-on lab that uses race data to teach machine learning. Video. 

Register for the lab here! Same link for on demand!

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

In this short preview I talk with Ophelia Hernandez about her upcoming DevOps session at Oracle Developer Live next week on automating continuous deployments to the cloud.

YouTube Video
https://youtu.be/tp6oEhRg-2Q 

Continuous Deployments: Automating Software Releases to OCI Platforms: This session will introduce OCI's new DevOps platform that enables developers to automate software deployments to OCI platforms. With OCI DevOps, you can accelerate feature delivery to customers and gain the confidence to quickly recover from errors.

Ophelia Hernandez
https://twitter.com/ophyh
Director, Software Development, Cloud Native Services, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Ophelia Hernandez is a director of software development at Oracle. A passionate engineering leader excited about the future of the cloud and DevOps, she enjoys solving difficult technical problems, mentoring, guiding career development, and team building. With more than 10 years of experience leading teams, Ophelia has built high performing global teams from scratch and is always looking for ways to become a better leader. Outside of work, she enjoys her four dogs, two cats, and one daughter and is an avid boxer, hiker, and world traveler.

Jonathan Schreiber
https://twitter.com/jonschreiber
Senior Principal Product Manager, Cloud Native Services, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure: Jonathan Schreiber is a senior principal product manager for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), working to empower developers on Oracle Cloud. During his time at Oracle, he contributed to the team that launched Cloud Shell, and now he is excited to bring the OCI continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform to developers. Prior to Oracle, Jonathan spent 10 years working in engineering and product management roles for San Francisco startups. His experience spans from ad tech at Federated Media to content marketing platforms at Chute. He started his career in the twilight of the dotcom era at TiVo, making websites with toothpicks and string

On demand sessions from all previous Oracle Developer Live conferences
https://developer.oracle.com/developer-live/

Oracle Developer Relations
https://developer.oracle.com/team/

#OracleDevLive on Twitter
https://twitter.com/hashtag/OracleDevLive

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

In this conversation I talk with both MySQL community managers, David Stokes from Texas and Frédéric Descamps from Belgium.

I met both of them in Brussels in February 2020 during the preFOSDEM 2020 MySQL Days. This is where the MySQL community comes together for two days of intensive technical sessions before going to the premier European open source conference — FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting). Yes, there's that much content to deal with so you need a conference before the conference!

Before the pandemic, Oracle used to send many engineers from various open source projects at the company to FOSDEM to participate in the event and to engage the other 20K developers from around the world there. And the MySQL team at Oracle was always a big part of the conference. 

Now in mid 2021 tech conferences still haven't really started up again, so development and community building takes place virtually. That's where I pick up the conversation with David and Frédéric.

MySQL technology is hot these days. There is a new release out recently with many fixes and enhancements, but even before that the project released a new feature called HeatWave. That's a real-time analytics MySQL Database Service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). It's easily enabled and disabled on demand with no application changes and can result in performance improvements of about 400 times. And it's only found in OCI. David and Frédéric said the early customer and developer reaction to the technology has been "staggering and eye popping." But in the conversation the guys also talked about more bits in MySQL, such as high availability, clustering, the shell, and the Kubernetes operator. 

We also explored some of the dynamics going on in the MySQL community, such as the steep learning curves that all developers have to deal with these days due to the ever increasing rate of change in software development. Some of the younger developers are discovering that some of the tools and techniques that were considered "old" are coming back because, well, they just work. On the other hand, younger developers seem to tolerate better all the exclusively virtual events these days than some of the older developers. So, there are multiple simultaneous trends taking place, just as there is in any aspect of life. So Frédéric and David have a good sense of the community and hope that when live events return they can bring together the older developers with all the new developers so the community can gel again in physical experiences.

And finally, they both said that in another six months there will be some really cool technology coming out. They wouldn't say more about that. But I'd take their word on that tease, though. The last time they told me that some cool stuff was coming they released HeatWave shortly thereafter.

Video on YouTube
https://youtu.be/T3TK23THWKw 

David Stokes is a MySQL Community Manager in Texas.
https://twitter.com/stoker

Frédéric Descamps is a MySQL community Manager in Belgium.
https://twitter.com/lefred

Jim Grisanzio is a Sr. Community Manager in Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris

MySQL Community
https://dev.mysql.com/

Announcing July 2021 Releases featuring MySQL 8.0.26
https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/announcing-july-2021-releases-featuring-mysql-8026

HeatWave
https://www.oracle.com/mysql/heatwave/

MySQL Database Service—New HeatWave Innovations
https://www.oracle.com/events/live/mysql-heatwave-innovations/

Frédéric Descamps Previews Oracle Developer Live — MySQL | October 2020
https://youtu.be/6i1WreKco9E

Dave Stokes and Frederic Descamps on Contributing to the MySQL Project | June 2020
https://youtu.be/NUU4W8O3teE

preFOSDEM 2020 MySQL Days | February 2020
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwfImoydiSsuHfrVWcq8qJ_cz8o6vuoRo

Cheers
Jim
--
Jim Grisanzio, Sr. Community Manager, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Here are some photos, stories, and lessons I've collected over the years building Open Source software development communities at Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and on my own. I like taking photos and I like talking to developers — it's how I learn. So in this comprehensive commentary I talk about pretty much everything I've learned during the previous 15 years or so doing community development. Everything I've learned I still use today.

You can follow along with the photos below or view the video. I gave an earlier version of this talk at the All India Oracle User Group's (AIOUG) virtual OG Yatra in 2020, and I've talked about bits and pieces of the content in many other presentations. That's why I wanted to bring it all together into a single narrative centered around some specific images and stories. Hope it hangs together. 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Photos

https://jimgrisanzio.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/grisanzio-community-stories.pdf

Video

https://youtu.be/nzo0PYv4tUM

Article

https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com/building-communities/

All India Oracle User Group OGYatra 2020 Slides

https://jimgrisanzio.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/2020-grisanzio-ogyatra.pdf

All India Oracle User Group OGYatra 2020 Video

https://youtu.be/gz7nMtWaUB0

Oracle Developer Relations Social

https://twitter.com/jimgris

https://twitter.com/groundbreakers

https://twitter.com/oracleace

https://twitter.com/oracleugs

https://developer.oracle.com/

Jim Grisanzio talks with Gerald Venzl from Oracle and Chris Thalinger from Twitter at UnVoxxed Hawaii 2020 about the un-conference format, the technical sessions, the mix of conference attendees, and some of the activities people took in during the three day event. 

• Jim Grisanzio https://twitter.com/jimgris
• Chris Thalinger https://twitter.com/christhalinger
• Gerald Venzl https://twitter.com/GeraldVenzl
• Sanbox Conference Center https://sandboxhawaii.org/
• YouTube Video https://youtu.be/nEIngyumfz8

This is part of the "From the Archives" series I'm posting occasionally to revisit some of the interesting personalities I've spoken to and the places where we've been building community here at Oracle. It's nice to look back every now and then. What you'll notice right away is a totally different energy when we're at an event working closely face-to-face. We all miss it. Hopefully we'll return to the road some day. For now, though, let's always remember and never forget. Cheers. ♥︎

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio talks with Mia Urman, Oracle ACE Director and CEO of AuraPlayer, about her experiences at the recent ODTUG Kscope21 virtual conference and the upcoming OATUG's Ascend conference in Miami, Florida in August 2021. 

Mia Urman, Oracle ACE Director, CEO of AuraPlayer
https://twitter.com/miaurman

Video
YouTube | Twitter 

Here is an older conversation in December 2020 we had on YouTube: Oracle ACE Director Mia Urman on Moving Oracle Forms into the Next Generation | Sangam 20
https://youtu.be/YyOwLToptnM

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Inspiring Builders: Part 2: Jim Grisanzio and Chris Bensen talk with Dale Dougherty from Make Magazine about the global phenomenon of Makers -- people who build with their bare hands and who give back to the community. This story is as old as it gets. We all have an inherent desire to build and collaborate and share, right?

Engaging Communities of Makers - People who Build with their Bare Hands (Video)

Dale Dougherty, Founder of Make Magazine
https://twitter.com/dalepd
https://twitter.com/make
https://twitter.com/makerfaire
https://makezine.com/
https://makerfaire.com/

Chris Bensen, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/chrisbensen
YouTube: Chris Bensen: Inspiring Developers to Build Real Things
Building of Super Pi
Building the world's largest Raspberry Pi cluster
The Seven Step Process to Creating an Amazing Demo
Starting a New Project — Pi Zero Custom Breadboard
Episode 1 - Custom Breadboard for Pi Zero

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Inspiring Builders: Part 1: Jim Grisanzio and Chris Bensen from Oracle Developer Relations talk about how they engage developers via demos and experiences online and at conferences. This in depth conversation is part one of a two part series on inspiring developers to build real things. 

• Jim Grisanzio on Twitter @jimgris
• Chris Bensen on Twitter @chrisbensen
• YouTube: Chris Bensen: Inspiring Developers to Build Real Things
• Building of Super Pi
• Building the world's largest Raspberry Pi cluster
• The Seven Step Process to Creating an Amazing Demo
• Starting a New Project — Pi Zero Custom Breadboard
• Episode 1 - Custom Breadboard for Pi Zero

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Hackmakers: Part 4: Jim Grisanzio talks with Amanda Bennett, Tamara Orth, and Alistair Hofert, about their experiences being mentors at the Hackmakers World Innovation Day Hackathon in April 2021. The conversation ranged from what tools and platforms were used, what projects were worked, who the participants were, and the overall passion everyone brought to the event. Oracle and other organizations sponsored the event in collaboration with UNESCO and UNEP. The areas of focus for the projects included health, education, and work -- all based on the larger list of United Nations world development goals.

• Amanda Bennett, Innovation Specialist, Qrius Alliance
• Alistair Hofert, Co-Founder, Synapse Squared
• Tamara Orth, President, QUT BANDS
• Jim Grisanzio, Sr. Community Manager, Oracle
• Hackmakers

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Hackmakers: Part 3: Jim Grisanzio talks with Steve Nouri about his experiences participating at the Hackmakers World Innovation Day​ Hackathon in April 2021. Steve is head of Data Science at ACS and also the Chair of Hackmakers. Steve loves participating in technical communities and hackathons and he talks about the value for developers in getting involved in these events.

Oracle and other organizations sponsored the event in collaboration with UNESCO and UNEP. The areas of focus for the projects included health, education, and work -- all based on the larger list of United Nations world development goals. 

• Steve Nouri on LinkedIn
• Jim Grisanzio on LinkedIn
• Jim Grisanzio on Twitter
• Video on YouTube

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio talks with Rex Wang, VP for Developer Marketing, and Alok Sanghavi, Product Manager, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, about the latest news and new services offered in Oracle Cloud Free Tier. See http://oracle.com/free.

• Video on YouTube
• Rex Wang on Twitter @wrecks47
• Alok Sanghavi on Twitter @aloksanghavi78

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Hackmakers: Part 2: Jim Grisanzio talks with Jason Lowe about his experiences participating at the Hackmakers World Innovation Day​ Hackathon in April 2021. Jason spoke about the people, skills, and software technologies that Oracle contributed to the event and some of history and upcoming hackathons as well. Developers and non-developers alike came together to work on projects to help support the people in need around the world -- and in the process they learned valuable new skills they can use in their careers. The experience was a continuum of learning for everyone.

Oracle and other organizations sponsored the event in collaboration with UNESCO and UNEP. The areas of focus for the projects included health, education, and work -- all based on the larger list of United Nations world development goals. 

Jason Lowe, Master Cloud Specialist Engineer, Oracle, @jlowe000

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Hackmakers: Part 1: Jim Grisanzio talks with Franco Ucci, Sr. Director for Oracle Cloud Platform Strategy for Australia and New Zealand. Franco outlines Oracle's involvement in the Hackmakers World Innovation Day Global Hackathon in April 2021, where thousands of developers came together to build solutions to help people. This is part one of a multipart series about this major developer event.

Franco Ucci opens the series of discussions with an explanation of the event and the focus of the projects -- which was health, education, and economic growth. All of these areas have experienced serious challenges due to the ongoing pandemic that started in 2020. Franco also outlined some of the important activities that led up to the event, such as meetings with UNESCO and other United Nations officials about human rights, displaced refugees, and bioethics.

Oracle and other organizations sponsored the event in collaboration with UNESCO and UNEP as developers worldwide participated in building solutions to solve human needs. The areas of focus for the projects included health, education, and work -- all based on the larger list of United Nations world development goals.

Franco Ucci, Sr. Director for Oracle Cloud Platform Strategy, @FrancoUcci

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio talks with Sandesh Rao about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the latest technologies from Oracle in the AIOps space, how Sandesh manages teams, how he deals with change, and how industry trends are changing everything.

• Sandesh Rao, Oracle VP, AIOps

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Jim Grisanzio talks with Jeff Smith about some interesting features that have been emerging in the Oracle Database recently, such as an integrated development environment in the console for rapidly building RESTful Web Services. And many other tools for developers, of course.

The two also talk about how much Jeff and his colleagues interact with the developer community, which is substantial. Jeff's been involved with database technology, developer communities, and enterprise customers for two decades now. He's has many fascinating stories to tell. 

• Jeff Smith, Distinguished Product Manager, Oracle Database

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

In this episode Jim Grisanzio talks with Dmitry Alexandrov about his session at Jfokus 2021. Dmitry is a well known speaker at Java conferences globally, and at this month's Jfokus he ran a live coding session on Project Helidon, which is a collection of Java libraries for writing microservices. Dmitry covered the performance improvements and new features in Helidon 2.1. See his session abstract here.

But Helidon is not just a Java engineering project for writing microservices. It's also an Open Source project. So developers can contribute globally via the community on GitHub. This is the real power of the technology -- the people sharing their experience and contributing to the project. And this is where Dmitry really gets emotional when he talks about Helidon. As a software developer, he loves the technology, but there's something special about his tone when he talks about the people he meets in the community.

Dmitry has been a Java Champion for several years now, and he recently jointed Oracle in Bulgaria. Get him on Twitter @bercut2000. Jim Grisanzio is a Sr. Community Manager in Oracle Developer Relations. Get him on Twitter @jimgris. Video from the interview is on YouTube.

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Javed Mohammed talks with Serial Entrepreneur Bob Quillin. Predicting the future isn't everyone's cup of tea.

In the absence of having a magical crystal ball, it requires amongst other things, experience, vision, creativity, good judgement, recognizing patterns beyond the obvious and a track record. When I think of making predictions, or forecasting the future, I am thinking of people who can determine inflection points. This is not an easy task, and there are some people like serial entrepreneurs who do it better than others. It doesn't mean they get it right all the time or in all aspects of life, but they can do it well in a particular field.

In that regard, Bob Quillin who is a serial entrepreneur graced this Podcast, and gave us a year in review of 2020 and his predictions for 2021. Here are the five plus one bonus inflection points as far tech and the cloud goes for 2021:

1. 1The Agility Imperative Explodes
2. Scale & Scalability
3. Technical Debt - Bill Comes Due Now
4. Lift and Shift Experiment Fails
5. Modernization Gets Modern
6. Bonus inflection point: Family, Life Balance, Health is #1

Bob Quillin, Chief Ecosystem Officer, vFunction

Oracle's COVID-19 therapeutic learning system is not just another APEX application  but it is also an Oracle cloud story, and it's a human-technology story.  This application is used by patients to enter their health status as well as clinicians and physicians to track the efficacy of treatments for coronavirus. We go behind the scenes and hear the back story, from some of the developers, their roles and how it all got started and the road ahead.

Previous Podcasts have covered what low code platforms are and looked at the capabilities of such a platform, Oracle Application Express (APEX)

In this program a panel of three experts, share how a nationally visible program, Oracle's COVID-19 Therapeutic Learning System was designed and built in record time. The panel features:

Joel R. Kallman, Senior Director, Software Development, Oracle America, Inc.

Scott Spendolini, Director, Software Development, Oracle America, Inc.

Shakeeb Rahman: Design Lead for Oracle APEX, Oracle America, Inc.

Read the complete show notes here.

Jim Grisanzio from the Oracle Developer Relations Team talks with Simerjeet Singh in this extensive conversation about how to deal with the massive change we are all experiencing in 2020. Simerjeet is a noted motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and performance coach in India, and he was the keynote speaker at last year's Oracle Groundbreakers Sangam 19 Conference in Hyderabad, which is the annual event from the All India Oracle User Group (AIOUG).

In December 2019 Simerjeet was the keynote speaker at the All India Oracle Users Group's annual conference, Sangam, in Hyderabad, India (photos). He spoke about thriving in a "VUCA World" -- Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous). See our interview here on YouTube right after his keynote. Our conversation in this podcast episode (video here) is a recent follow up to that initial meeting at Sangam 19. We talk about some of the challenges 2020 has brought into our lives and how developers and administrators can adapt and thrive when situations are totally out of control.

Managing massive change and thriving in the chaos of 2020

• https://www.oracle.com/news/connect/managing-massive-change-and-thriving-in-the-chaos-of-2020.html 
• https://youtu.be/0Ttpfeucyak 

Simerjeet on the Web

• https://twitter.com/SimerjeetSingh 
• https://www.simerjeetsingh.com/ 
• https://www.youtube.com/user/CuttingEdgeINDIA 

OGYatra 2020

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPIzp-E1msraCFAAY7aEVdRrhgCleboiN 

OGYatra 2019

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwfImoydiSstJGaogJFnda9oe3Tvnmc8K 

Sangam 19

• https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwfImoydiSsuUB94zfUNDluAnvwIEe_qI 

All India Oracle Users Group

• https://www.aioug.org/ 

Interview with Simerjeet at Sangam 19 in Hyderabad in December 2019

• https://youtu.be/BnbBk8O9C5w 

Jim Grisanzio on Building Communities

• https://youtu.be/gz7nMtWaUB0 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Autonomous technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are on the tip of every tongue in tech. But what is the difference between AI and ML? What are interesting use cases? What is "under the hood" of AI/ML and the algorithms that power ML models?

We have three Subject Matter Experts who share their insights into a fascinating and at times humorous conversation.

• Charlie Berger, Sr. Director of Product Management for Machine Learning, AI and Cognitive Analytics at Oracle.
• Heli Helskyaho, CEO Miracle Finland  Oracle ACE Director, Groundbreaker Ambassador. Author. Doctoral student, University of Helsinki. Also known as HeliFromFinland.
• Katharine Jarmul, Head of Product at Cape Privacy, she is a Privacy activist, AI dissenter, machine learning engineer. Author and teacher for O'Reilly.

Listen to learn about what makes AI and ML solutions powerful as well as the challenges we face from them. Charlie, Heli and Katharine explain some of the fundamentals about this revolutionary technology but also share personal stories which make for a memorable Podcast.

Read the complete show notes here.

Jim Grisanzio talks with Oracle Sr. Product Manager Avi Miller on a variety of Open Source projects at the company, some history about Oracle's involvement in the Linux community, how people can contribute to FOSS projects generally -- and a bit of Legos development at the end. 

• Avi Miller (Twitter)
• Jim Grisanzio (Twitter)
• Video on YouTube
• Blog 1
• Blog 2 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Community Manager Bob Rhubart, host of the Oracle Groundbreakers Podcast, is calling it a day, as he retires from Oracle. Bob is one of a kind and anyone who knows him can verify that. Smart, helpful, generous, friendly, are just a few of the many words that describe him.

In this interview Bob shares how he moved into tech, what inspires him, and share highlights from his career at Oracle. Just for the record, Bob started and grew the Oracle Groundbreakers Podcast into the number one rated Podcast from Oracle. We hope to continue his legacy.

Read the complete show notes here.

Returning for this discussion is Joel Kallman, who heads the Oracle development team behind Oracle APEX. Joel is in Columbus, Ohio. Also returning is Oracle ACE Director and Groundbreaker Ambassador Martin Giffy D'Souza. Martin is Director of Innovation at Insum Solutions, and lives in Alberta, Canada. Joining the panel is Oracle ACE Director and Groundbreaker Ambassador Roel Hartman. Roel lives in the Netherlands, where he is Director & Senior APEX Developer at APEX Consulting. Also on the panel is Oracle ACE Director Niels de Bruijn. Niels is Business Unit Manager at MT AG in Cologne, Germany. 

See the complete program show notes.

Read the complete show notes here.

Photo by ThisIsEngineering from Pexels

May 23, 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the first appearance of the Java programming language, as designed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems. Despite the emergence of a number of competing languages over the years, Java, under Oracle's stewardship since 2010, remains one of the most widely used languages in software development. It runs on 3 billion devices worldwide, and is used by more than 12 million developers.

In recognition of this milestone in Java's evolution, we sought the insight of people who regularly work with Java. We wanted their perspectives on the significance of this anniversary, and on the intersection of Java and their lives, professional and otherwise. As you'll hear, for these people, Java is so much more than a technology.

Listen to learn about what goes into the design and development of a chatbot, the challenges encountered along the way, and how to celebrate a chatbot's birthday.

The wide-ranging conversation covers strategies for those working to build diverse teams, as well as advice for job-seekers. The panel also reveals the extent to which diversity has dimensions beyond gender, ethnicity, culture, and religion. 

See the complete show notes.

See the complete show notes.

See the complete show notes here.

 See the complete show notes.

See the complete show notes.

A group of organizers and presenters from the 12-country Oracle Groundbreakers Latin America Tour 2019 recap the the event over delicious Pakistani food while in San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

Polyglot programming is certainly nothing new, but as the number of languages grows, and as language preferences among coders continue to evolve, what happens to decisions about which language to use in a particular project? In this program we'll explore the meaning and evolution of polyglot programming, examine the benefits and challenges of mixing and matching different languages, and then discuss the GraalVM project and its impact on polyglot programming.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

What is the current state of play in DevOps? What forces are having the greatest impact on the evolution and adoption of DevOps? Is NoOps a valid prospect for the future? Those questions notwithstanding, one thing is certain: while everybody is talking about DevOps, getting from talk to action is proving to be a substantial hurdle for many organizations. This panel of experts has plenty to say about how to clear that hurdle.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

View the complete show notes.

In September 2017 The Atlantic magazine featured "The Coming Software Apocalypse," an article by James Somers, that offers a fascinating and sobering look at how rampant code complexity has caused massive failures in critical software systems, like the 2014 incident that left the entire state of Washington without 911 emergency call-in services until the problem was traced to software running on a server in Colorado.

One of the people interviewed in that Atlantic article was Chris Newcombe, an expert in dealing with software complexity. Chris, an architect on the Oracle Bare Metal infrastructure as a service team,  is one of the panelists for the discussion you are about to hear. Chris is joined by Java Champion and microservices expert Chris Richardson, Java Champion Adam Bein, and Oracle ACE Director and Developer Champion Lucas Jellema. The conversation focuses on what developers can do to combat complexity.

• Nicole Forsgen, Founder and CEO, DevOps Research and Assessment LLC, Beaverton, OR
• Leonid Igolnik, Product Development Executive, Startup Mentor and Advisor, Sand Hill Angels, San Francisco Bay Area.
• Alena Prokharchyk, Principal Software Engineer, Rancher Labs, Cupertino, CA
• Baruch Sadogursky, Developer Advocate, JFrog, Cupertino, CA
• Shay Shmeltzer, Director of Product Management, Oracle Cloud Development Tools, Redwood Shores, CA
• Kelly Shortridge, Product Manager at SecurityScorecard, NYC

• Combating Complexity An article in the September 2017 edition of the Atlantic warned of The Coming Software Apocalypse. Oracle's Chris Newcombe was interviewed for that article. In this podcast Chris joins Chris Richardson, Adam Bien, and Lucas Jellema to discuss heading off catastophic software failures.
• AI Beyond ChatbotsHow is Artificial Intelligence being applied to modern applications? What are the options and capabilities? What patterns are emerging in the application of AI? A panel of experts provides the answers to these and other questions.

The Panelists

• Natalie Delamar, Senior Consultant with Ernst & Young, and a former president of ODTUG, the Oracle Developer Tools User Group
• Oracle ACE Director Heli Helskyaho, CEO with Miracle Finland, and an Ambassador for EMEA Oracle Usergroups Community
• Oracle ACE Director Michelle Malcher, Security Architect at Extreme Scale Solutions and a former president of the Independent Oracle Users Group
• Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman, President Of The Board Of Directors of the Denver SQL Server User Group, and Technical Intelligence Manager for the Office of CTO at Delphix
• Laura Ramsey, Manager, Database Technology and Developer Communities, Oracle America

In this freewheeling discussion the panelists talk about the trends and technologies that have captured their interest, the work that consumes most of their time, and the issues that concern them as IT professionals. Then, to wrap things up, you'll get a quick preview of their respective sessions at Jfokus.

• Jesse Anderson: Data Engineer, Creative Engineer and Managing Director of Big Data Institute.
• Benjamin Cabé: IoT Program Manager and an Evangelist with the  Eclipse Foundation.
• Kevlin Henney: Consultant, programmer, speaker, trainer, writer and owner of Curbralan.
• Siren Hofvander: Chief Security Officer with Min Doktor, a digital healthcare provider in Sweden.
• Dan Bergh Johnsson: Agile aficionado, Domain Driven Design enthusiast, and code quality craftsman with Omegapoint.

Click here for the complete program show notes, including additional content from the panelists.

This program was recorded on Thursday November, 9, 2017.

Listed alphabetically

Lonneke DikmansChief Product Officer, eProseed, Utrecht, NL

John KingTech Enablement Specialist/Speaker/Trainer/Course Developer, King Training Resources, Scottsdale, AZ

Robert van MölkenSenior Integration / Cloud Specialist, AMIS, Utrecht, NL

Arturo ViverosSOA/Cloud Architect, Sysco AS, Oslo, NO

The panelists for this podcast are busy, working developers with stellar reputations:

(Listed alphabetically)

• Lonneke Dikmans, Chief Product Officer at eProseed. Utrecht, NL
• Lucas Jellema, Chief Technical Officer at AMIS Services. Rotterdam, NL
• Frank Munz, software architect and Cloud Evangelist at Munz and More. Munich, DE
• Pratik Patel, Chief Technical Officer at Triplingo and president of the Atlanta Java Users Group. Atlanta, US
• Chris Richardson, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Eventuate Incorporated. San Francisco, US

This wide-ranging conversation spans containers, microservices, PaaS, IoT, machine learning, and much, much more. Listen!

• Oracle ACE Director Mia Urman is Chief Executive Officer of AuraPlayer Limited. She's based in Brookline, Massachusetts.
• Peter Crew is Director at SDS Group, and Chief Technical Officer with MagiaCX Solutions, in Perth, Australia
• And Christoph Ruepprich is Infrastructure Senior Principal with Accenture Enkitec Group. He's based in Dallas, TX

In this program Mia, Peter, and Christoph compare notes on the particular challenges that defined their chatbot development experiences, and discuss what they did to meet those challenges.