Miro Wengner at JavaOne on OpenJDK and the Java Community
Jim Grisanzio with Miro Wengner
Duke’s Corner Podcast — December 2, 2022
Duke’s Corner Podcast with Miro Wengner at JavaOne Las Vegas 2022 about his experiences with Java the technology, and why he loves Java the community. Miro serves on the JCP Executive Committee, he’s a Java Champion, and he’s a contributor to OpenJDK. He’s also a friend I met back on the OpenSolaris project at Sun in 2008!
https://dukescorner.libsyn.com/miro-wengner-at-javaone-on-openjdk-and-the-java-community
Transcript:
(00:00:00):
Hey, everybody.
(00:00:00):
Welcome back to Duke’s Corner.
(00:00:02):
So I’m continuing my series here of conversations from Java 1,
(00:00:07):
which was in Las Vegas this year in October.
(00:00:10):
And this conversation here is with Miro Wengner.
(00:00:13):
He’s a friend of mine, actually.
(00:00:15):
I was just walking along the conference show floor.
(00:00:21):
And this guy walks up to me and says, hey, Jim, how you doing?
(00:00:24):
And I says, oh, no, Miro.
(00:00:26):
Miro from Europe.
(00:00:29):
I was on the Open Solaris project years ago.
(00:00:32):
And in 2008, I traveled to Prague and I met him there.
(00:00:37):
And then, you know, after the conference, we sort of went our separate ways.
(00:00:41):
A lot happened.
(00:00:44):
Obviously, Sun was acquired by Oracle.
(00:00:46):
Open Solaris was…
(00:00:48):
canceled and then uh yeah we just lost track and uh so now i see him here at java
(00:00:54):
at java one and i find out he’s a contributor to open jdk he’s a java champion he’s
(00:01:01):
on the jcp executive committee and he’s done a lot with java so that’s really great
(00:01:06):
and so we talk about that in this conversation a couple more interviews coming talk
(00:01:11):
to you soon
(00:01:12):
Hey, everybody.
(00:01:13):
How you doing?
(00:01:13):
This is Jim Grisanzio from the Java Developer Relations team.
(00:01:17):
And we’re here at the end of the day now from the third day of Java 1 in Las Vegas.
(00:01:22):
And I’m here with an old friend, actually, Miro from Munich, Germany.
(00:01:27):
Miro, welcome.
(00:01:28):
Hey, thank you for having me here, Jim.
(00:01:30):
So it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.
(00:01:33):
Exactly,
(00:01:34):
because I initially said he’s an old friend because we met in 2006 or 2008,
(00:01:39):
something at Sun,
(00:01:41):
when I was on the Open Solaris project and I traveled to Prague,
(00:01:46):
right?
(00:01:46):
We met in Prague for the first time for an Open Solaris conference.
(00:01:51):
And then we went our separate ways.
(00:01:53):
Life changed.
(00:01:54):
And then all these years later, I see him here in Las Vegas and he’s a Java champion doing Java.
(00:02:00):
So, yeah, let’s catch up for the last 20 years or 15 years.
(00:02:04):
So what brings you here?
(00:02:06):
Again, Java, right?
(00:02:08):
It’s a great epoch system.
(00:02:09):
I have a lot of friends here, actually.
(00:02:11):
I built my career up under Java.
(00:02:14):
It changed my life.
(00:02:15):
And yeah, I stay here.
(00:02:17):
I’m contributing to OpenJDK, so yeah, I have a lot of interest here.
(00:02:22):
You’re a contributor to OpenJDK as well and a Java champion.
(00:02:25):
Yes.
(00:02:26):
Then what else?
(00:02:27):
User group leader?
(00:02:30):
No, no.
(00:02:30):
Well, it was before, but actually time change requires change.
(00:02:34):
I have a family.
(00:02:35):
I cannot allocate that much time right now.
(00:02:38):
So I have a newborn baby.
(00:02:40):
Hi to them.
(00:02:41):
And four years old guy.
(00:02:43):
So it takes some time.
(00:02:46):
But still I’m contributing to OpenJDK mission control project.
(00:02:51):
We are using it actually that works for the customers.
(00:02:55):
And so that’s why I’m here.
(00:02:58):
To make an old connection again real after two years pause.
(00:03:03):
So yeah.
(00:03:04):
And I’m joining Las Vegas.
(00:03:06):
Yeah, Vegas has been a lot of fun.
(00:03:07):
We’re out in the hallway here because it’s the best source of light.
(00:03:11):
Out in the sun, it’s just too bright right now.
(00:03:14):
So tell me about the conference.
(00:03:15):
This is day three.
(00:03:16):
Everything’s wrapping up at this point.
(00:03:18):
How has the conference gone for you?
(00:03:20):
For me?
(00:03:22):
Like,
(00:03:22):
there were likely happening so much changes in order to improve the JVM behavior,
(00:03:30):
actually,
(00:03:30):
and OpenJDK user experience.
(00:03:32):
You know, we have this project, Ember,
(00:03:35):
here with basically,
(00:03:36):
I had a presentation about how the new feature involves the design patterns,
(00:03:40):
basically how they indirectly push the user to use design patterns even when they
(00:03:46):
don’t know that they are using it.
(00:03:49):
I’m talking about the switch and instance of changes and improvements that are here in JDK.
(00:03:55):
So for me, it’s conference going amazing.
(00:03:57):
As I say, after two years not having a Java 1, I refresh, I get approval from my wife, thank you.
(00:04:04):
Tanya.
(00:04:06):
So,
(00:04:07):
and I refresh all new relations,
(00:04:10):
well,
(00:04:11):
no,
(00:04:12):
all new,
(00:04:13):
no,
(00:04:14):
old relation to become again new,
(00:04:17):
and yeah,
(00:04:17):
again,
(00:04:18):
to find a way how to push the community forward,
(00:04:21):
not only just community,
(00:04:22):
how to push the OpenJDK,
(00:04:24):
because community is built around it.
(00:04:27):
So, for me, perfect.
(00:04:29):
Excellent.
(00:04:29):
So what about the Java community back in Germany?
(00:04:33):
How are things there in terms of the dynamics versus here?
(00:04:37):
Oh, okay, so they are… I’ve been speaking on a couple of JAGs meetups.
(00:04:43):
I’m not…
(00:04:45):
Actually,
(00:04:45):
I had to say due to my family duties,
(00:04:47):
so I cannot contribute that much anymore,
(00:04:51):
but I can give a talk.
(00:04:52):
My talk was, of course, about Java Fly Recorder and observability and profiling for Ingolstadt.
(00:05:00):
I think I’m Munich.
(00:05:02):
I don’t remember.
(00:05:04):
But I think in Germany there is something happening actually.
(00:05:10):
There are people really involved and chatting and sharing the knowledge.
(00:05:15):
So in Munich especially, yeah, there are a lot of meetups around.
(00:05:19):
The community is quite vibrant here.
(00:05:22):
Excellent.
(00:05:22):
So how are you using Java in your, you know, currently, like in your job?
(00:05:26):
Okay, so in my job, so I’m working for Open Value.
(00:05:31):
We are a bunch of individuals with, I would say, okay, we are developers, yeah?
(00:05:36):
So, but the mission is to have a fun and fun, of course, in a Java ecosystem.
(00:05:42):
And then also one point of my work is to share knowledge.
(00:05:45):
So we are posting blogs on a few days.
(00:05:50):
So what I’m doing,
(00:05:51):
we’re of course helping the clients,
(00:05:54):
long-term clients,
(00:05:55):
to set up their dreams or actually their needs.
(00:05:59):
And I can honestly say in my work, multi-climbs, I’m running Java 17, which is great.
(00:06:07):
So that all clients, when able to migrate and use,
(00:06:12):
What I need to say is that not all developers are having a team, so they tend to use the new features.
(00:06:20):
It’s still new.
(00:06:21):
It’s weird.
(00:06:22):
It’s new, although it helps to maintain the code and improve the experience.
(00:06:29):
Actually, the words about Java verbosity, I think it’s coming from the past.
(00:06:34):
But we run the long way.
(00:06:37):
So it’s not true.
(00:06:38):
I don’t think.
(00:06:39):
I don’t agree totally with this.
(00:06:42):
So we are running up to 17, observing the new features.
(00:06:46):
So yeah.
(00:06:47):
And as I said, these microservices, services, I’m using the Java on a daily basis.
(00:06:54):
Yeah.
(00:06:55):
So one of the things I’m interested in whenever I talk to developers is why they
(00:06:59):
became developers and how they became developers.
(00:07:04):
So to that story, because the industry changes, software just changes so rapidly.
(00:07:11):
Is this something you just loved when you were younger to do, to write code?
(00:07:16):
Why did you become a developer?
(00:07:17):
That’s a beautiful question, thank you for asking.
(00:07:20):
So, when I was eight, I got my first computer, it was ZX Spectrum, thank you for that.
(00:07:27):
I ended up with having the beautiful game, which were the two squares, two circles, and just kind of
(00:07:35):
running around LCD, it was written in basics.
(00:07:39):
And from there I started to love, I really loved the computer, I was playing the games of course.
(00:07:44):
So it turned into that a friend, father of friend of mine was working for automotive industry,
(00:07:53):
Yeah, drawing those amazing engines and saw the pieces.
(00:07:57):
So I saw the computer from other perspective, what can it do, right?
(00:08:02):
And then, because in order to have this work, you need to develop something, you know, to have a user.
(00:08:09):
So I’ve been involved in mechanical engineering and also in programming.
(00:08:15):
And from here, the destiny wants to have me the developer.
(00:08:22):
So I end up writing a program.
(00:08:24):
I love mathematics.
(00:08:25):
You said you love mathematics?
(00:08:28):
Probability.
(00:08:31):
That was one of my favorite lessons at the university.
(00:08:35):
Although I studied robotics, but this particular area, I really love it.
(00:08:39):
So we have a garbage collection, right?
(00:08:43):
I really like it.
(00:08:45):
And the Java JDK is so much science.
(00:08:49):
of course by observability and statistics too.
(00:08:53):
But it’s all there we have in Java.
(00:08:55):
So you see here,
(00:08:57):
when I discovered that all is there by working at Sun with the Java Platform Group together.
(00:09:03):
So, well, how can you go away from Java?
(00:09:07):
Yeah, Sun had a real, yeah, exactly.
(00:09:10):
Sun was a real engineering-focused company.
(00:09:15):
or my career I get opportunity to work with the guys they put up the Scorisity
(00:09:21):
things on the Mars but yeah it was so awesome environment you know so like pushing
(00:09:29):
discovering your border not pushing it forward but just let you discover things so
(00:09:34):
I been interesting on fun bunch of things that’s why we met actually exactly yeah
(00:09:39):
it was great fun
(00:09:42):
So, okay, so what do you do after this?
(00:09:44):
The conference is over here now.
(00:09:46):
When do you go back?
(00:09:48):
So I go back, I fly back on, I mean, maybe tomorrow or on a Saturday, but back to my family.
(00:09:56):
So what I do after?
(00:09:57):
Okay, so I have…
(00:09:59):
First, I think we will get with friends from Azure.
(00:10:02):
We will give a talk on one meetup.
(00:10:05):
So let’s get it on 25.
(00:10:06):
And then there will be another conference in Germany where I will be giving a talk
(00:10:12):
about the same topics as the Java Fire Recorder and Java Mission Control.
(00:10:16):
What we put into the 8.3 will be available because there are really a lot of
(00:10:21):
changes in order to visualize the data and understand what is happening to your
(00:10:26):
Java application.
(00:10:27):
So this is what I’ll be doing.
(00:10:29):
And aside of it, I will be, of course, the only job is developing and designing the applications.
(00:10:36):
So I will be coding, definitely.
(00:10:37):
I’m not a manager.
(00:10:41):
That’s cool.
(00:10:41):
That’s cool.
(00:10:43):
Okay, well, good luck with everything.
(00:10:45):
Thanks for joining me.
(00:10:46):
It’s really cool seeing you after all these years.
(00:10:49):
And, yeah, maybe we’ll meet up again at another Java 1 or just another Java conference.
(00:10:57):
Well, the thing is, well, I have definitely aloneness to go to Java 1.
(00:11:01):
So we definitely meet in Java 1.
(00:11:03):
So I don’t want to miss this.
(00:11:04):
This is amazing opportunity to meet old friends and to refresh the friendship and actually to speak.
(00:11:11):
It’s not like to having a Zoom.
(00:11:13):
You know, many of guys are having a Zoom conference.
(00:11:17):
That’s actually in Corona times.
(00:11:18):
It was the most social event I had.
(00:11:21):
to having with OpenJDK team to a Zoom conference.
(00:11:24):
We drink sometimes beer, but we talk about the topics, but it was the most social things I had.
(00:11:31):
I mean, that’s what these conferences are for, to get together and have these conversations.
(00:11:35):
And it sounds like you’ve had a lot of great conversations here.
(00:11:38):
Yes, of course, of course.
(00:11:40):
Of course, this is definitely, and I think it’s the right place to go.
(00:11:43):
I think,
(00:11:44):
okay,
(00:11:44):
why I love the job one is,
(00:11:46):
actually,
(00:11:46):
in the past,
(00:11:47):
it was the beginning of all the conferences,
(00:11:49):
right?
(00:11:49):
So here,
(00:11:50):
when it’s been published,
(00:11:51):
all the major changes with our coming count,
(00:11:53):
there has been done the major announcement.
(00:11:56):
I know there have been a couple of major announcements, like the Grey VM group,
(00:12:00):
what they have done and what is coming in to do under OpenJDK.
(00:12:04):
But it’s some kind of,
(00:12:05):
I think,
(00:12:06):
I hope the next year will be Java 1 way better and starting to getting back to the
(00:12:11):
old good times.
(00:12:13):
You got to rebuild, right?
(00:12:15):
So that’s what we’re doing.
(00:12:16):
We see what life brings.
(00:12:19):
I’m really crossing fingers.
(00:12:23):
Miro, thanks a lot for joining me and we’ll see you soon.
(00:12:26):
Yeah, see you soon.
(00:12:27):
Thank you.
(00:12:27):
Have a good day.