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JIM Grisanzio Hey, everybody.
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How are you doing?
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This is Jim Grisanzio.
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Welcome back to Duke’s Corner.
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So I got a conversation here with Neha Sardana.
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Really cool, great story.
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She’s a senior Java engineer on the East Coast of the United States.
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And she contributes to the Garden State Jug and the New York Java SIG.
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And she’s lived in three different countries.
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She has presented at Java conferences all over the world.
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And what I found particularly interesting was that she started off her education
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as a mechanical engineering student,
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and then she transitioned into software and then,
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you know,
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she was working on robotics,
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actually.
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And then she had this aha moment when she first learned Java,
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when she first saw Java and the capabilities of Java and just bam,
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that was it.
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And she was off to the races.
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um changed her life new opportunities new friends new communities um really really
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uh really just you know offered her offer her a great new direction and uh yeah
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hope you like the conversation we’ll have more soon cheers neha welcome to duke’s
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corner hi jim how are you doing i’m very happy to be here
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it’s very good to to uh see you um meet you here for the first time we’ve cut
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across paths a little bit at some conferences i think uh now that i joined this
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java team that i’m on now and um so you come very highly recommended from some
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people um on my team so i wanted to chat with you
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talk about your experiences with the java community this is a podcast that talks
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about the community first and foremost and the people that i talk to i’m interested
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in their backgrounds and what they do uh for a living how they got to where they
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are why java you know um
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And why the community?
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You know, it’s a big open source community.
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It’s one of the largest, probably, if not the largest software development communities out there.
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Twenty six or seven, 28 years old or whatever it is now.
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So.
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So, yeah, let’s just start with where are you right now?
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You are in the east coast of the U.S. ?
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Yes.
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So I live in New Jersey.
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I’ve been living here for almost seven years.
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Before that, I lived sometime in Denmark, in Europe.
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And before that, I was in India.
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And when I say India, I lived in a couple of cities, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi.
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So I’ve been traveling a lot.
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This is the longest I’ve stayed at one place, honestly.
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Wow.
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i’ve gotten around as well i grew up in new york and i lived in boston and then san
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francisco and then tokyo and now here in osaka um and i’ve been to all those places
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in india that you just mentioned actually um i’ve never been i’ve never been to uh
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denmark um
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so you’re a java developer yeah absolutely you’re a java developer and you write
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code and um i’m interested in one of the one of the things i’m interested in is um
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you know how you become a developer
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And the reason I ask the question is, you know, I kind of struggled through school.
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The math and the science were very hard.
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It was very interesting to me.
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But, you know, and then I took my first programming class and I said, oh, my God, this is so cool.
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But I am just not smart enough to do this.
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And so you write code, you write Java code, and Java is not known to be the easiest thing in the world.
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And so why, how, how and why?
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So it’s a funny story because when I was in high school,
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we were newly introduced to computers in India back then.
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It wasn’t very common to have a programming language.
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I know some people had it, but in my school, it was not very common.
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And my entire family is not from a programming background.
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So I remember my first programming language was Fox Pro.
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And we wrote my first program like a palindrome program.
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So I still remember the teacher explaining the logic.
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And I was like, whoa, this is pretty cool.
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So that was my first introduction to programming.
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And I was a confused child back then,
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I have to tell you,
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because I was not really sure if I wanted to do it.
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I was good at it.
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But I was like, I’m not sure.
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Because in India, it was like when you go to college, you have to be very competitive.
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You have to become an engineer or a doctor.
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That used to be a norm, pretty common.
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So I wanted to get into a good engineering college, which I got into.
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But my engineering degree was in mechanical.
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Even though I wasn’t very happy about it, the good part was I was still doing C programming.
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So that’s where the curve shifted from FoxPro to C programming.
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And I was still like, you know, interested, okay, this is fun and this is cool.
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And the best part was that in mechanical engineering as well,
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we had some sort of programming,
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like we were programming robotics,
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right?
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So I was interested always in that designing part, coding part.
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And then when I got a job, I got a job in hardcore computer science.
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So I got a job at Accenture and I was supposed to move into Bangalore and they were
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sort of training everyone over there,
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whoever joined.
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So they trained me in Java and that was another aha moment.
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Okay, this is pretty cool.
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This is what I wanted to do.
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So I guess from 2008, I have started with Java and I’ve never gotten bored.
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There was a time when there was some stagnation when the Java releases were not happening.
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But I guess from the last couple of years,
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since it has gone to six months cadence and the releases are pretty frequent,
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there are pretty cool features.
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And I have never looked back.
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I always wanted to do Java.
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I still have a headfirst book in myself, which I read.
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It’s interesting.
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Okay.
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So you’re working on C and then you move to Java.
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So that must have been a pretty seamless transition in terms of complexity.
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So C is not known to be simple either, right?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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It wasn’t simple, but I liked the object-oriented way of Java, which kind of fascinated me.
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So C is good.
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We have pointers.
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We don’t have pointers in Java.
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But in a way, Java had a lot of things to explore.
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And one of the good features with Java is when I started doing Java,
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I saw a lot of opportunities coming to me.
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I did my certification because I wanted to like prove myself as I’m a Java engineer.
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I can do Java projects as well.
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And that gave me a lot of exposure to multiple sorts of projects.
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And everywhere I went,
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I never had to like,
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you know,
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prove myself because everyone knew,
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okay,
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you know,
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Java,
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you will be able to get into any languages.
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Like I’ve explored JavaScript.
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Now I’ve explored Scala as well.
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So it,
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the basic foundation having done in Java has actually helped me a lot in other
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programming languages as well.
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It’s interesting.
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So, okay.
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So you definitely wouldn’t regret it, right?
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So would you recommend it?
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I mean, so, but you’ve been into it for a while.
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So would you still recommend it for kids?
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Like if the high school,
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I’m particularly also interested in,
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you know,
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younger kids getting involved,
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you know,
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cause this community is very interesting.
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Old.
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All right.
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It’s got a lot of older people in it, but I’m always talking to younger people.
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In fact, most of the people I’m talking to are pretty young.
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And this is like self-referral.
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There’s new people always coming in.
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So would you recommend, I mean, just through your experiences that you’ve had?
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Yeah.
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So first of all, I have a personal interest as well because my nephew is almost turning 13.
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So he has started programming and I’m like forcing him.
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I’m like, not forcing, but I’m suggesting him that he should start with Java.
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He wants to pursue a career.
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And also like we, I worked with Heather Vancouver at Oracle, who’s the head of JCP as well.
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And we worked on a program called Java in Education.
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Wow.
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Yeah, I know.
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I’ve known her for a long time, yeah.
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So she actually got me into Java in education program,
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which is actually where we kind of created some abstracts and,
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you know,
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knowledge.
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And we actually,
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in New Jersey,
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we touched base with the high school kids and we gathered some of their questions.
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They had a lot of interesting questions about Java, like what can they get when they learn Java?
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What is the benefit?
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A lot of those questions,
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which we are not really used to it,
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we don’t think about it because it’s so ingrained in us,
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but they kind of asked a lot of questions.
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So the Java user group,
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New Jersey Java user group,
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Garden State Jug,
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and Barry Bird,
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who’s one of our leaders,
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he went there to the high school and with some other folks,
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and he was actually interacting with those people.
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So we were kind of getting in touch with them so that they can understand and they
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know what Java can bring to the table.
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And also,
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since we host the Java user group in New Jersey at the college,
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the Drew University,
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it’s kind of very much connected that the college students are aware that this is
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the Java community,
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this is how you make networks.
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And it’s really fascinating that Java community is one of the best
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You know, it’s been there for a very long time.
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It’s 28 years already with Java.
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And the community is so strong.
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Anywhere I go, any city you travel to, everywhere you will find one Java user group for sure.
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Interesting.
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I’ve seen like a lot.
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Yeah,
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that’s interesting you say that,
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because earlier you said that once you know Java,
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it sort of opens up a lot of opportunities.
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Right.
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And then there is this, as you say, this very large community and most majors.
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You’re right.
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Most major cities have some sort of a group in there.
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So what’s that like?
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Talk a little bit about that.
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You know,
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you can travel to work for a conference or maybe a customer meeting for your
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company or even just a vacation or something landing pretty much anywhere around
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the entire world and having some sort of a presence in Java because Java is pretty
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much everywhere.
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It’s a marketing slogan, but it actually is true.
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What’s it like to be able to connect?
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globally like that so so uh i remember i haven’t actually been to uh lately i’ve
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not been to any java user groups in person but i’ve been able to like since the
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pandemic started i’ve been able to go online and join their meetings and i was very
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interested because uh i’ve spoken to a lot of folks who are in dublin uh some of
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the folks who are in amsterdam like
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Since all these people are in the Java community,
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they talk to each other,
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they work together on conferences,
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and they are from different Java user groups,
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so it’s gotten easier.
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The good part is that when I lived in Denmark, I remember there was a Java user group in Denmark.
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They usually talk in Danish,
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but it’s easier to switch also in English as well because everybody speaks in
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Danish and English in Denmark.
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so so it was kind of easier but I like the fact that they keep it in the local
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language so that a lot of people who are living there who are from there they kind
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of uh come together they ask questions they have good conversations happening and
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you know they keep the community alive and it’s it’s pretty important so like when
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you participate in these groups are you doing presentations as well
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Yes, so I have presented.
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I’ve mostly presented here in US.
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And I’ll be honest,
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I have started presenting very,
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like,
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in last three years,
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because I wasn’t really sure initially that I was very good at it.
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So I was attending one aspiring speaker presentation.
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I think there was a conference in London, which was like broadcasted online.
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So I attended that and I got a lot of conversation.
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I met some people.
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I met Mary Gretlitzky.
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She’s the Chicago Java user group leader.
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So I was very shy.
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And I just asked her,
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like,
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what do you recommend for,
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you know,
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women who are like interested or maybe interested,
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not really sure about it.
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So she gave me a lot of pointers, she invited me to talk at her jerk at a lightning talk.
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And the kind of feedback that I got from there,
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I started applying for conferences,
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and I spoke at my own Java user groups.
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So I’ve spoken at
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Pittsburgh Java user group.
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I’ve spoken at Chicago.
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I’ve spoken at DevNexus and my own Garden State Java user group and New York JavaScript,
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which is like these two are one of the biggest Java user groups in the entire US.
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So I’m pretty honored.
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Like I got opportunities one by one because of all this when I started it.
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So you mentioned you lived in three different countries and multiple cities within India,
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three very different countries as well.
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Do you notice any,
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talk a little bit about like what it was like,
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what were the differences or the similarities?
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Because the common theme was Java.
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in those three countries to one degree or another.
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But you have different languages and different cultures as well.
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You mentioned a little bit about Denmark using English as well.
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But as I know from living in Japan,
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just how you run a community is different,
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how the people gather is different,
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how they behave in social groups.
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it’s slightly different so i’m just wondering if you had any uh experiences like
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that uh like i said i don’t think i have attended in person in denmark because
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initially when i was there i i was very it was very difficult for me to learn the
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language but i used to go to the go to conferences there they have this go to
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nights
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where they organize in the evening, just like the go-to conferences, they have go-to nights as well.
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They have some meetings up there, which are in English.
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So that was easier for me to attend and understand.
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But one of the key points is,
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So culturally, they are very different.
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You have to understand one thing like Indian culture is very different than
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European culture and then US is pretty different.
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The kind of exposure I would say I’ve got in US is tremendously different.
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I’ve been able to meet people a lot more here because it’s also because there are
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many speakers are US-based speakers.
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So it’s easier to get in touch with them, meet with them.
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In Europe, I wasn’t really very active for some reasons because it was a language barrier at one point.
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And,
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you know,
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I lived there for like four years and first two years was like getting adjusted to
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the life there.
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But yeah, I mean, I’ve seen like the community activity is always there.
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Like you are always welcome.
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You can come in, you can join in.
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And, you know, even now that I don’t live in Denmark or in Europe, I am still here.
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Able to see the activities going there.
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I do join.
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Sometimes they have online meetups as well.
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So I do go and join them.
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It’s pretty fun and interesting.
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London is easier.
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Actually,
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I was part of a London women’s group and it was fun because I was able to do it
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online and they were doing a lot of good activities there.
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So I was able to join in and pitch in my ideas as well.
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By the way, I lived in London for a very short time as well.
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So that’s another one.
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And in India,
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it’s different because in India you have,
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so the working hours is pretty long,
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mostly for people.
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And also in the evenings, people cannot join because they try to collaborate with USR.
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So it’s evening work hours for most people.
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So they do meetups on the weekends.
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So weekends, you won’t believe actually people go to the meetups on weekends.
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So it’s pretty common.
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Yeah, same here.
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So it’s not that we won’t be able to do that in US for sure.
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But it’s pretty common in India.
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And the community is getting back on track.
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I’ve spoken to Mala.
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She’s from Delhi Java User Group.
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And I was very interested to know how the group is doing after the pandemic.
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And they are kickstarting back.
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And it’s pretty nice to have that they are also going back now.
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person.
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They have actually done a few meetups in person as well.
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So yeah, mostly next time when I go to Delhi, probably I’ll try to visit one of them.
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i was so jealous i was there in july of 22 so last year last july and i met malo
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there for the first time and they were not doing they were just starting to sort of
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think about doing live meetings at that time uh because i wanted to sort of have uh
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you know have a meeting you know with the group and meet everybody but she came by
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i was there for the oral for the oral all in the oracle user group
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tour basically the Yatra they call it and we went to six cities and so I tried to
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meet as many Java people in each of the six cities but in there they weren’t really
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active yet and then I got home and then like three or four weeks later they started
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meeting live you know so this was I just missed them yeah interesting
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So what,
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you say Java,
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you know,
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learning Java was very,
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I mean,
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you love to code,
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obviously you love computer science,
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you have a technical background,
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and then you fell in love with Java and it’s been very good to you.
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What about the technology is,
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I don’t know,
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most interesting or do you use the most or what about the technology itself makes
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it attractive or useful or valuable to you as a developer?
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So it’s very interesting because I like,
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so in the last 10,
(00:19:12):
15 years,
(00:19:13):
you may have noticed like everything has been changing really fast.
(00:19:16):
Technology is advancing really fast.
(00:19:18):
We are living in a like AI world now.
(00:19:22):
Chat GPT is everywhere, right?
(00:19:25):
So it’s fun because, you know, as a developer, you want some sort of stability as well.
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So Java as a language has given me a stability, a stable platform.
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But the things around Java like are changing and they are constantly changing.
(00:19:43):
So we never heard of cloud like five, seven years ago.
(00:19:47):
I guess I was late learning, but like 10 years ago, you wouldn’t have learned about cloud at all.
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all these frameworks,
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all these technologies,
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telemetry,
(00:19:59):
open telepathy,
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these are like new things that are coming up and they are kind of changing the way
(00:20:05):
we are doing programming.
(00:20:06):
Quantum computing is here now and we can also program that way.
(00:20:11):
So it’s kind of fun, but it’s also a little bit scary because these things keep changing.
(00:20:18):
So you have to keep track of it where it’s all changing what’s coming up.
(00:20:22):
So if you are in a
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it is for like six months you might see thing which is entirely new some new open
(00:20:31):
source or something has it has changing so what you did and you know even if you’re
(00:20:40):
not working at work on a specific language or technology you should you know try to
(00:20:47):
keep yourself aware of what’s happening in your surrounding until it suddenly hits
(00:20:51):
you
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Yeah, it is.
(00:20:56):
Things do change so rapidly.
(00:20:59):
And that’s one of the,
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it’s hard,
(00:21:02):
but it also is,
(00:21:03):
in terms of tech,
(00:21:04):
it also offers people a nice,
(00:21:07):
convenient on-ramp to get involved.
(00:21:10):
Because like you said, if you don’t,
(00:21:13):
keep up you get left behind even even with stable platforms like java been around a
(00:21:17):
long time there’s still boatloads of new features that are coming out every six
(00:21:23):
months and um how these things are implemented are you know you need to keep up
(00:21:28):
with all these things but if if you’re motivated even
(00:21:34):
older people like me can change careers right and if they focus really well can can
(00:21:41):
jump into this field right um not necessarily coding but something like it or maybe
(00:21:48):
even you know coding um so uh i guess i would say like the tool surroundings so
(00:21:56):
tools like intellij they make our lives easier with java like
(00:22:01):
You don’t have to write a lot of code.
(00:22:03):
The tools that you use, they are intuitive.
(00:22:06):
So I’m really in love with IntelliJ in that sense because it makes my life much
(00:22:13):
more easier to manage and write a lot of code.
(00:22:16):
I know Java has some sort of…
(00:22:20):
The only complaint that I hear about Java is that it’s slightly verbose when
(00:22:25):
students start to write it,
(00:22:27):
which also we have a lot of tools to help them with,
(00:22:32):
like JBang or something.
(00:22:34):
But in a way,
(00:22:36):
for a productive developer who has to work every day on technologies like Java,
(00:22:42):
tools like IntelliJ,
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they kind of really help us through with…
(00:22:48):
providing all sorts of intelligence and code completions and hierarchies and generating code diagrams.
(00:22:57):
It gets a lot easier with them.
(00:22:59):
So it’s really recommended to use them, even though you don’t have to.
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But it’s nice to work with them and be more accurate and productive and avoid bugs.
(00:23:11):
Yeah.
(00:23:12):
And as you said, it makes it just easier.
(00:23:15):
Yeah.
(00:23:16):
And some of these are beautiful.
(00:23:20):
When I see developers working with them,
(00:23:23):
they’re graphically,
(00:23:25):
they’re laid out,
(00:23:26):
just the layout,
(00:23:27):
just the design of them alone.
(00:23:28):
And I’m always very impressed because a developer with a really good tool,
(00:23:33):
so you have to start off with a smart developer with a really good tool.
(00:23:37):
That one person with that one tool can really do amazing things.
(00:23:43):
um to to create systems um to fix things um just to i mean it’s just it’s just
(00:23:50):
amazing i don’t i’ve worked in multiple fields i’ve worked in four different
(00:23:54):
industries and this is the the the uh the only industry that i can say this with a
(00:24:00):
single individual with a single tool can do an amazing yep
(00:24:05):
amount of work you know sometimes i go into meetings and i’ll sit with these
(00:24:10):
engineers and even sometimes they’re impressed with the amount of work that just a
(00:24:17):
handful of people can do let alone 500 like you know years ago you’d have large
(00:24:21):
numbers of people that you would need large numbers of people to do a task uh it’s
(00:24:26):
in software now you know
(00:24:28):
These tools are able to actually identify your bugs in advance.
(00:24:33):
So I’m really, you know, you cannot make mistakes that easy with these tools in place.
(00:24:42):
Well, I bet I could, but I understand.
(00:24:47):
So you also mentioned that,
(00:24:48):
you know,
(00:24:49):
this concept of keeping up,
(00:24:50):
this concept of staying fresh,
(00:24:52):
all developers have to do it.
(00:24:54):
It’s not just,
(00:24:56):
you know,
(00:24:56):
young people might find it a little bit easier than old people or older people
(00:25:01):
who’ve been around in the field.
(00:25:02):
But do you have any sort of tricks that or advice or just things that you do to
(00:25:08):
keep up aside from like studying really hard to fit new?
(00:25:13):
You know, something new comes out.
(00:25:16):
But is there anything that you do as a practice that helps you keep up?
(00:25:21):
That’s a wonderful question because I also get asked a lot whenever I talk about,
(00:25:26):
you know,
(00:25:26):
Java or anything else in my company or in my friends group as well.
(00:25:31):
Sometimes I hear people talking like, oh, how do you keep up to date?
(00:25:35):
And even for me, it’s not easy.
(00:25:38):
I’m telling you, frankly, like I went on a parental leave.
(00:25:41):
I had a baby like three months, four months ago, and there was a chat GPT fiasco.
(00:25:46):
I was like, oh, what’s going on?
(00:25:49):
That just happened.
(00:25:50):
So I guess, yeah, I mean, it’s really hard.
(00:25:54):
But you know what?
(00:25:56):
There are ways.
(00:25:57):
One of the easiest things to do is to go to your Java community locally in your area.
(00:26:05):
I haven’t been able to personally go to New York JavaSig and Garden State Java User
(00:26:10):
Group in New Jersey,
(00:26:11):
but they have online presence.
(00:26:14):
Whenever they live stream, I listen to it at home, which is easier to handle.
(00:26:18):
When you’re handling the baby, you can also listen.
(00:26:20):
It’s easier for me.
(00:26:22):
And I would agree to a lot of people who have busy lives who are not able to do it,
(00:26:27):
but they want to hear about it.
(00:26:29):
It takes one hour meeting just to attend.
(00:26:32):
And, you know, if you’re not able to go in person, you attend it online.
(00:26:36):
It’s much more preferable.
(00:26:38):
Sometimes the topic may attract you.
(00:26:40):
Sometimes you don’t know anything about the topic,
(00:26:43):
but you want to hear it because,
(00:26:44):
you know,
(00:26:44):
it might be something interesting.
(00:26:47):
There are multiple blogs that I recommend.
(00:26:51):
I know dev.java has a lot of stuff going on, which is very good.
(00:26:54):
I know you are part of it as well, which is good.
(00:26:57):
It keeps us up to date.
(00:27:00):
IntelliJ, I know JetBrains also releases a Java annotated monthly.
(00:27:07):
That’s kind of compilation of a lot of blogs.
(00:27:10):
I really liked it because they have a compilation of blogs, they have conferences as well, talks as well.
(00:27:16):
So it’s kind of good mix.
(00:27:18):
So whenever you get chance to read it, you can read it.
(00:27:21):
I know Twitter has gotten to a place where, you know,
(00:27:26):
It used to be more useful,
(00:27:28):
but I remember Billy used to do a sip of Java,
(00:27:31):
a 10-minute sip of Java,
(00:27:33):
and it was amazing,
(00:27:35):
really amazing.
(00:27:36):
So I like to read these short clips and short blogs or all these things because
(00:27:42):
sometimes you don’t have a lot of time to read the entire book.
(00:27:46):
But you can always find 10 minutes to read it at least.
(00:27:49):
And a lot of articles,
(00:27:53):
you know,
(00:27:53):
when you follow people on Twitter,
(00:27:56):
like people like you or JavaRel community,
(00:28:00):
people like Anna,
(00:28:01):
Billy,
(00:28:02):
Sharad,
(00:28:03):
and these are all like sharing a lot of good stuff on Java.
(00:28:07):
So I like to follow these developers on Twitter.
(00:28:11):
and Java user groups.
(00:28:13):
I might have followed every Java user group I have found on Twitter.
(00:28:18):
Whenever they share anything particularly interesting, it entices me to read and look at the blogs.
(00:28:27):
So I’m much into blog reading.
(00:28:29):
So I like to read the blogs because it’s nice and short, five minutes blog.
(00:28:33):
It’s not difficult, right?
(00:28:35):
So I really recommend doing that for anyone who wants
(00:28:41):
to keep in touch.
(00:28:43):
Of course, it’s better to join your Java user group community locally because they are doing it for you.
(00:28:50):
There’s a lot of effort that goes on in getting new content, speakers as well.
(00:28:57):
I really recommend our user groups are online.
(00:29:00):
A lot of user groups are streaming online already.
(00:29:04):
If you are not able to go in person, you can watch everything online.
(00:29:07):
I’ve been doing that
(00:29:09):
Since I had a baby, I’m not able to go in person, but I’ve been able to attend every meeting online.
(00:29:14):
So it’s easier, it’s helpful, and it helps a lot.
(00:29:20):
Excellent.
(00:29:21):
Yeah, that’s all excellent advice.
(00:29:25):
So, all right.
(00:29:27):
Neha, it was great talking to you.
(00:29:30):
Definitely would like to meet live someday so we can get out of Zoom and so we can
(00:29:38):
have one microphone and have the high fidelity of an actual physical presence.
(00:29:44):
Sure.
(00:29:45):
Definitely.
(00:29:47):
So do you have any final words?
(00:29:48):
Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you want to mention?
(00:29:53):
I think we covered a lot.
(00:29:55):
And I have to go because my baby started crying.
(00:29:58):
Oh, okay.
(00:29:58):
Well, that’s a good reason to go.
(00:30:00):
All right.
(00:30:02):
We’ll talk to you soon.
(00:30:03):
We’ll see you online.
(00:30:04):
Bye-bye now.
(00:30:05):
Thank you.
(00:30:06):
Thanks a lot.
(00:30:06):
Bye.
(00:30:07):
Bye, Jim.
(00:30:08):
Bye-bye.