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Hey, everybody.
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How you doing?
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This is Jim Guzzanzio from Java Developer Relations.
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Welcome back to Duke’s Corner.
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And my special guest tonight is Manit van Dijk from the Netherlands.
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Manit, welcome.
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Welcome to Duke’s Corner.
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Hi, Jim.
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Thanks for having me.
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Thank you very much for joining me.
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I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.
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I became familiar with you recently from the Java Champions program.
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I heard I was monitoring all the activity on that,
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and hopefully you’ll tell me that story a little bit later.
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So yeah,
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we’re just going to have a conversation here,
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talk about you,
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talk about the community,
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talk about the technology,
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all three in any mix that makes sense.
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And maybe we can start off with…
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What’s going on these days?
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What are you working on with Java these days?
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So I’m a Java developer advocate at JetBrains as of just over a year and a half ago.
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So I’m working with all kinds of Java stuff,
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doing lots of content on Java stuff,
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either speaking at conferences,
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writing blog posts,
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creating videos for the IntelliJ IDEA YouTube channel.
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basically trying to highlight features in IntelliJ IDEA that are useful to developers.
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I’ve done some videos on Git, Git interactive rebase support, resolving merge conflicts.
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A latest new feature that we have is the ability to
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commit parts of a file if you’re working on a file and you have made some quick
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fixes that you want to commit and changes for a feature that you’re working on,
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but you want to commit them separately,
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you can do so.
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I did a video on that.
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And of course, playing around with JetBrains AI Assistant, which is new.
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and trying to see if that can help me build applications or find problems in my
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code and all kinds of stuff.
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Building Spring applications or working with Spring applications like I did in my previous job.
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Basically all kinds of things to hopefully help developers develop better software
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or better software faster.
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And of course, seeing how our tools like IntelliJ IDEA can help with that.
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Interesting.
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I’ve interviewed a few people from JetBrains.
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It seems pretty popular.
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Well,
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fortunately,
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a lot of Java developers anyway use IntelliJ IDEA,
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but also when I’m at conferences that aren’t specifically Java conferences or
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talking to developers who are using different languages,
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I hear PyCharm is very popular or they know some of our other IDEs like CLion.
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Of course, Rust Rover is new for people who are into hip and new languages.
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So, yeah, fortunately, people like our IDs.
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Cool.
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So tell me why Java?
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And,
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you know,
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I always ask this question because I’m interested in,
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you know,
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the Java technology has been around for so long.
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It’s gone through so many iterations.
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It’s evolved so much.
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And particularly recently, when you go to conferences, you see a lot of young people, you know.
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But the technology has been around for a long time.
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So I’m always interested in why.
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uh somewhat by accident i learned java at university which was also my first real
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programming experience i didn’t learn java in or any programming in high school i
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learned java 1.2 if anybody wants to do a little bit of math on how old i am um
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otherwise my twitter handle is a hint
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um so yeah i learned java university um i did learn a little bit of or we did do a
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bit of prologue if anybody’s done that but mostly java and then kind of stayed on
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the java ecosystem so i’ve done a little bit of groovy a little bit of scala a lot
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of kotlin in my previous job and still doing java because well it’s been around for
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a while as you said and
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That means that also the ecosystem is quite mature.
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So we have good build tools,
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good libraries to do basically anything we need to do as professional software developers.
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And that makes it easy to use.
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And of course,
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with the new release cadence,
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there are lots of features that are being added to the language,
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lots of stuff that is changed to make it easier to use.
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So yeah, still enjoying using Java on a day-to-day basis.
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It’s interesting when you say they’re like new tools to make it easier.
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Almost everybody I talk to either at a conference or through this podcast have commented,
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especially if they’ve been around for a while,
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that the ease of use,
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essentially the on-ramp is much,
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much easier than it was years ago.
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I can remember when a long,
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long time ago,
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I was learning C at Northeastern and that was,
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oh my God,
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it was so painful.
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But I didn’t have any IDE back then.
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It was just a blank screen, right?
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That’s all I had.
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And I wasn’t terribly adept at that.
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Then years later, I met some friends who were in computer science.
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In the early years, they were struggling with Java.
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It was just so hard.
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But I never hear that now.
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Never.
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No.
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And I recognize what you’re saying.
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So when I was in university,
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we started with Notepad because,
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of course,
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they make you compile your stuff on the command line because you have to know how
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to do that.
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Although nobody does that in real life.
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I mean, not manually.
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And we did have an IDE.
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It was JBuilder.
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I don’t know if you remember using JBuilder,
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which basically the main benefit at the time was instead of compiling on the
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command line,
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you had this big green run button that you could use to run your code and see what
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you’d written and whether it worked.
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Yeah,
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all of the hints that the IDE gave you,
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like missing semicolons or mismatching brackets,
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wasn’t nearly as good as the IDEs are today.
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Yeah,
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so when I switched to IntelliJ IDEA years ago,
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I was just super impressed with all of the features and it being actively helpful
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to writing and developing code.
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So I’ve been saying that for years, and now JetBrains has hired me to say it.
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You think that the fact that these tools are so intelligent now and so well thought
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out and actually so intuitive,
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do you think that’s changed how you think as a developer in terms of when you’re
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actually building an application as opposed to years ago?
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That’s an interesting question.
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And now, of course, I’m curious whether there’s research on that.
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But yeah,
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I think learning programming these days is much,
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much easier than it was,
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like you said,
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20 years ago,
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or I have a friend roughly my age who did learn programming as a child from a book.
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You know, she checked out a book from a library.
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She’s like, I need to write all of this and copy all of this code manually.
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And
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If it didn’t work, the compiler would yell at you.
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And nowadays we have lots of tools that can help us figure out what’s wrong.
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And if we can’t figure it out in our IDE,
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we can use our favorite search engine to learn about new stuff or figure out what’s wrong,
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or even just search for the error message to find out what it means and how to fix it.
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So I definitely think that learning programming these days is much,
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much easier and the tools are there to support people
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writing code?
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Yeah,
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it’s just the reason I ask,
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because I used to be in the construction business,
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which is obviously something that is heavily influenced on tools,
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many,
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many different tools for many different jobs.
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And I remember the buying equipment that was state-of-the-art at the time that was
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actually represented a true innovation over some old machinery.
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And it totally changed how we
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graded roads and how we cleared land and not only efficiency made it easier,
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but it changed how we thought about the process.
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Yeah.
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So I was just at JFocus conference in Stockholm,
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Sweden,
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and there were a lot of talks on generative AI,
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of course.
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And as I mentioned,
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I’ve been playing around with JetBrains AI assistant when writing code,
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and I definitely see that using a coding assistant changes the way you write code,
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or at least some of the process.
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I do find that I’m still thinking about like breaking up a problem into smaller parts.
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which I find extremely helpful no matter how I’m going about then checking the
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boxes to build those parts.
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I find it helpful to make sure that I understand the problem,
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break it up into smaller parts and where before I might again use my favorite
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search engine to find out how do I do this thing or how do I do that thing.
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Now I might ask AI assistant,
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but I still need to evaluate whether the code that it gives me is the thing that I want.
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Sometimes it’s out of context or it doesn’t have enough information to do the thing that I really want.
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And of course, if you’re using a search engine, you can evaluate the sources that it’s giving you.
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And oh,
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yeah,
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I remember this blog post or this person who wrote this blog post,
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and I trust that they’re giving me good content.
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So I might use that over something else.
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um but yeah there are so many resources out there to help you solve your problem
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which makes it all that that much easier these days i remember i wonder if i if i
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were in my 20s now whether i would just see that naturally and jump into it so so
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take me back a little ways to when you were in school what what made you think
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either in high school or in college that you were going to move into this space
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So I ended up in computer science somewhat by accident.
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I was having a really hard time in high school deciding what I wanted to study in university.
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And eventually I started out studying psychology, which is what both of my parents had studied as well.
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Because, well, I’m also really interested in people and how people work.
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So and interacting with people.
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So that’s how I started.
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And then at the university.
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So I went to University of Amsterdam.
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They had a program called Social Wetenschappelijke Informatica in Dutch.
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So literally translated that social science informatics.
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And that’s exactly what it was.
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It was a mix of computer science and social science.
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And I’ve been interested in computers and I had a lot of friends who were doing computer stuff.
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But I was also a little bit scared, like it looked complicated.
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But then since I was already in university and this major was in the same building,
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I was like,
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let’s just start doing that and see how it works out.
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If it doesn’t work out, I can just continue with psychology.
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But as it turned out, it rather did work out.
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And I really love the mix of computer science and social science and looking at
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It had various levels from usability,
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so human-computer interaction,
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one-on-one,
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UX design,
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those kinds of things,
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and what works and what doesn’t,
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to technology in organizations,
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so what makes a technology successful or not successful,
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and some of it is technical and some of it is organizational,
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to what is the impact of IT on consumers.
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society at large, how does it change the way that we work, the way that we communicate, etc.
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And I was,
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of course,
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I’m still really interested in the last part,
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but didn’t really make a career out of it.
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So I worked mostly, of course, in the middle layer on IT projects in organizations in various capacities.
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Interesting.
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I did actually see your LinkedIn.
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I saw that word, informatics, I think you said.
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I was not sure what it was.
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I honestly can’t imagine mixing something like software and psychology or software and social science.
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Really interesting mix.
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So that explains some of the software out there,
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then maybe if they’re not properly thinking about the users of the software.
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Well, some of us build the tech just to build the tech because it’s interesting.
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And I get that.
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But mostly we build the tech because we’re filling a need.
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We’re solving a problem.
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We are helping users with something or we’re doing computations that would
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otherwise take way too long to do by hand,
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which is the word computer originally was someone doing lots of math by hand.
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And then we invented machines to do that.
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And those were also called computer.
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Interesting.
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I’m kind of struggling here for a question in the sense because I’m so interested in the psychology here.
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So what is your assessment?
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What is your viewpoint about how we have evolved since you went through your
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curriculum in the sense of social science and IT?
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So I remember taking a class on,
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let me translate in my head,
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it was called something like the network society.
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And it was about how technological changes would influence society and what would
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be the effect of being in an information bubble,
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for example.
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And at the time we had mainstream media, we had newspapers.
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We had cable television, but people were pretty much consuming the same information.
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You know,
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maybe this newspaper would describe it slightly differently than that newspaper or
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this news channel would describe it slightly different than that newspaper or other
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TV channel.
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But mostly the information that everybody got was the same.
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And, you know, soccer is very popular in the Netherlands or in Europe.
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we don’t have football like uh the americans do where you use your hands for the
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ball but that’s a different story so uh personally i was never that interested in
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soccer but whenever there was like big soccer tournaments there would be soccer
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soccer soccer everywhere so at the time i was like
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i don’t really see the downside to having information bubbles if i could just
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filter out the stuff that i’m not really interested in i don’t see the downsides of
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course these days those downsides are much more obvious because everything that the
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professor was talking about kind of came to be like ah i get it now yeah yeah that
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makes sense that’s bad so um
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And going back to what we do for a living these days.
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So, you know, I see a lot of people who are like, oh, here’s this new tech and it’s super interesting.
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And yes, from a technical viewpoint, it’s really interesting.
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But people aren’t always thinking about what would be the impact of how we use it or
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Yes, it can be used for good, but also for bad.
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And keeping that in mind and keeping in mind the people that will use it and the
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impact that it will have on their lives,
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which is something that I’m always interested in.
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And just hearing you speak,
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just listening to you,
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I mean,
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I guess that’s the whole conversation now with AI,
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obviously.
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Yes.
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The impact on society.
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Yeah.
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And thinking about how do we use it and being deliberate in how we use it and
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thinking also about potential downsides.
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And that’s not just for AI, but basically any system that you build.
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is to think about what are potential downsides,
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what are potential,
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not just what are the use cases,
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how is it intended to be used,
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but what are potential abuse cases,
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how could this technology be abused by people to,
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I don’t know,
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stalk their ex if they wanted to,
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or…
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Think about potential downsides.
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So this type of consideration,
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is that a part of,
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I mean,
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I know it was a core part of your curriculum since it was half,
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basically.
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But I mean,
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if someone majors in computer science,
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don’t they have at least some awareness of this in terms of learning?
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I wouldn’t.
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I hope so.
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I haven’t done a traditional computer science program, so I don’t know.
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I think some programs do have something like ethics in there.
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I think they all should have something like ethics in there.
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Maybe all university courses should have something like ethics.
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Because a lot of them,
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you know,
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eventually what we end up doing,
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whether it’s computer science or technical engineering or finance,
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all of it impacts people and people’s lives.
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So, yeah.
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So in terms of the programming and actually sitting behind a keyboard and writing code,
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did that come naturally to you when you were in school?
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Not really, I have to say.
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So I really loved learning about it.
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And I really loved getting the computer to finally do what I wanted it to do.
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But there was a lot of frustration involved from high level understanding what it
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should do,
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but then getting the code to actually do that.
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Of course, as we mentioned, IDEs weren’t nearly as good then.
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So if you didn’t get the syntax
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exactly right.
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There was no IDE to help you with that.
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So it was definitely a lot harder.
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And I loved the thinking about how to solve the problem,
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but I was very frustrated with the process of then getting it to actually work to
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the point where I actually didn’t work as a developer for the start of my career.
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I worked as an information analyst, functional designer, and even a project manager for a while.
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And then through a reorganization, had to go back to writing code, had to relearn Java, basically.
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So I learned Java 8 at the time, which is also already 10 years ago.
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And then found that actually I really did love working with code and writing code
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and having something to show for your work at the end of the day,
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as opposed to I was a project manager before.
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Sometimes you worked really, really hard all day to end up further away from your goal.
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Um, which can be extremely frustrating.
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So coming from that,
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I was really happy to be writing code and actually,
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you know,
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even if at the end of the day,
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you didn’t get it to work,
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at least you’ve learned something you’ve learned that this,
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this,
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and this doesn’t work.
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And you know,
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tomorrow is another day and I can try to go about it a different way,
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but eventually you’ll get it to work.
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But yeah,
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I really had to kind of learn that tenacity of trying to figure out the problem and
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keeping at it and what to do if you get too frustrated and to sometimes just walk away,
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go for a walk.
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You know,
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some of your best ideas come from going for a walk or,
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you know,
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you wake up in the morning and you have the solution in mind.
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Sometimes the shower helps, you know, you find the solution while you’re in the shower.
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You’re like, ah.
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And then you have to go back to your computer and fix it.
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So,
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um,
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yeah,
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I kind of really had to learn that tenacity and,
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and through experience and figuring out problems and then solving them,
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learn that I actually can do that and,
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and get,
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I don’t know,
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increase my confidence that I could do it,
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um,
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that way.
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Right.
(00:18:40):
I think what you said about having a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day
(00:18:44):
that you actually did something.
(00:18:45):
I mean,
(00:18:46):
for a lot of people like me,
(00:18:48):
in terms of you do a lot of process work,
(00:18:51):
you’re managing projects,
(00:18:53):
whether it’s organizing a conference or managing an actual team of people.
(00:18:58):
I can remember distinctly when I was managing a team and managing some projects or
(00:19:03):
engineering projects and just having the engineers involved
(00:19:06):
Doing the work and then here I am managing all the facilitating all the process
(00:19:11):
around it,
(00:19:12):
you know,
(00:19:12):
and not really feeling a sense of accomplishment because if they didn’t accomplish anything,
(00:19:17):
I had to,
(00:19:17):
you know,
(00:19:17):
like in that week,
(00:19:18):
let’s say,
(00:19:19):
I had to then explain to my boss why,
(00:19:22):
why didn’t they,
(00:19:23):
right?
(00:19:23):
Yeah.
(00:19:24):
Well, it turns out some of these things are harder to figure out, right?
(00:19:26):
And so you need a little bit more time, et cetera.
(00:19:28):
And just not having that sense of I did something today.
(00:19:32):
Whereas years ago when I was building houses, you know, I dug a hole.
(00:19:36):
I cleared a lot.
(00:19:38):
I framed a building.
(00:19:39):
I fell off a roof.
(00:19:41):
These things were very real, tangible things that happened.
(00:19:45):
Oh, I fell off a lot of things.
(00:19:46):
Oh, goodness gracious.
(00:19:49):
I have, yeah, a lot actually.
(00:19:52):
But they were all very tangible.
(00:19:53):
They were all very physical as well, obviously physical.
(00:19:56):
And you can look at, you come home at night and you did a ton of stuff.
(00:20:01):
So I think that’s very, very interesting.
(00:20:03):
And that’s also why I actually liked a lot of the science classes.
(00:20:06):
And I took a few programming classes.
(00:20:08):
I liked it, but I had trouble scaling it.
(00:20:10):
It just got a little complex for me.
(00:20:12):
But
(00:20:12):
Okay, you’re out of college and stuff.
(00:20:14):
Now you’re in the real world.
(00:20:15):
You’re using Java.
(00:20:16):
You’re going to conferences,
(00:20:17):
presumably,
(00:20:18):
as I know,
(00:20:18):
because I’ve seen a lot of your talks out there and stuff.
(00:20:21):
Talk a little bit about,
(00:20:22):
you know,
(00:20:23):
as you’ve gotten into the business and,
(00:20:25):
you know,
(00:20:25):
start mixing with the community.
(00:20:27):
What’s the community like?
(00:20:28):
The Java community is awesome.
(00:20:30):
So I didn’t start conference speaking until 2018 or actually I started going to
(00:20:36):
conferences 2017 when I started my previous job.
(00:20:40):
And before that, I’d worked in insurance and banking mostly, and they didn’t really go to conferences.
(00:20:46):
So then I switched to an online retail organization in the Netherlands and they
(00:20:51):
went to conferences and I was like,
(00:20:52):
oh,
(00:20:53):
that sounds like fun.
(00:20:54):
So I went to conferences and really loved it because
(00:20:57):
You get to meet all of these people who are doing maybe different kinds of jobs
(00:21:02):
that you are doing,
(00:21:03):
or even if they are developers,
(00:21:04):
they’re working in different companies,
(00:21:05):
different industries,
(00:21:07):
and they all have,
(00:21:08):
you know,
(00:21:09):
a lot of the problems are the same,
(00:21:11):
but some of the problems are different.
(00:21:12):
So you get perspectives that you wouldn’t necessarily get in your own company.
(00:21:16):
Then I started,
(00:21:17):
or actually I joined Twitter and started like following all of the speakers that I
(00:21:22):
really liked,
(00:21:22):
interacting with them and people started interacting with me.
(00:21:27):
And someone invited me to please submit a lightning talk to a conference in the
(00:21:32):
Netherlands called Joy of Coding,
(00:21:34):
which is not a Java conference.
(00:21:36):
It’s language agnostic.
(00:21:38):
They do a single track where they invite speakers that they really like on topics
(00:21:43):
that they are interested in.
(00:21:44):
But they also have a CFP for lightning talks, for five minute lightning talks.
(00:21:48):
So my first talk was a five minute lightning talk.
(00:21:51):
I was absolutely terrified.
(00:21:54):
And the person who invited me,
(00:21:55):
who is Peter Hilton,
(00:21:57):
who is also a speaker,
(00:21:58):
he said,
(00:21:58):
you know,
(00:21:58):
it’s only five minutes.
(00:22:00):
If you don’t like it, it’ll be over soon.
(00:22:02):
Of course, what he didn’t tell me is it could be worse.
(00:22:05):
I could end up liking it and doing it again and going through the same,
(00:22:10):
you know,
(00:22:10):
especially if you’re just starting out as a speaker,
(00:22:13):
just being terrified of going up there and
(00:22:17):
There’s a joke among speakers that if you’re writing a new talk,
(00:22:20):
you know,
(00:22:20):
there’s always the phase where like,
(00:22:22):
I hate everything about this talk.
(00:22:24):
But then you go on stage and,
(00:22:26):
you know,
(00:22:26):
some people it resonates more with than others,
(00:22:28):
but generally people are super supportive.
(00:22:31):
And,
(00:22:32):
you know,
(00:22:33):
especially going to Java conferences,
(00:22:35):
meeting a lot of the other speakers like Billy and Ana Maria and Char.
(00:22:41):
from Oracle, but also other companies.
(00:22:44):
You’re kind of, you know, your co-workers who work at different companies.
(00:22:49):
You end up meeting each other all the time.
(00:22:51):
People are super supportive.
(00:22:53):
So, you know, you end up going to each other’s talks and learning from each other and with each other.
(00:22:57):
And that’s the best part really is getting to meet all of the people and talk about
(00:23:01):
what they’re doing and meeting also the people who attend the conferences,
(00:23:06):
hearing about what problems they have and thinking about how we can
(00:23:10):
help them with the problems that they have, how we can improve our tools to help them better.
(00:23:16):
All of that, I really, really love.
(00:23:18):
Yeah, the conferences, especially in Europe, especially recently, are really incredible.
(00:23:22):
They’re very dynamic, lots of people.
(00:23:25):
So a lot of these events,
(00:23:27):
they started from user groups,
(00:23:29):
and now they’re massive conferences with 2,000 and 3,000 people there.
(00:23:32):
That’s really impressive.
(00:23:33):
And it’s not like there’s just two or three conferences in the summer or in the fall or in the winter.
(00:23:40):
These things are constant now.
(00:23:41):
They’re all over the place.
(00:23:45):
It’s just amazing that the Java community is really thriving.
(00:23:50):
And you can find,
(00:23:51):
particularly in Europe,
(00:23:53):
I think this might be,
(00:23:55):
in terms of recently,
(00:23:57):
very healthy in Europe.
(00:24:00):
Maybe it’s because it’s tightly compact.
(00:24:03):
It’s just lots of countries that have a lot of tech and a lot of Java developers
(00:24:08):
and this culture of meeting.
(00:24:10):
Really, really amazing.
(00:24:12):
Yeah.
(00:24:12):
So ever since I joined my last employer,
(00:24:16):
my previous employer,
(00:24:17):
I also went to all of the Java conferences in the Netherlands.
(00:24:21):
So we have the NLJUG,
(00:24:23):
so the Dutch Java user group who organized two conferences a year,
(00:24:27):
JSpring in spring and JFall in fall.
(00:24:30):
And as a member, you can go to those conferences.
(00:24:34):
I think for JSpring, you need to buy a ticket, which isn’t too expensive.
(00:24:38):
So these are affordable community conferences where they get a lot of local speakers,
(00:24:44):
but also a lot of international speakers.
(00:24:46):
And the program is always really, really good.
(00:24:48):
And I’ve been going to those since 2017, I think.
(00:24:52):
So meeting lots of Java developers from around the Netherlands,
(00:24:57):
always meeting up with people that I might have worked at a different company with before,
(00:25:02):
or even people that I went to university with who are now Java developers somewhere
(00:25:07):
in the Netherlands.
(00:25:08):
So that’s a really interesting thing in the Netherlands, at least.
(00:25:12):
And I think other countries like Germany have the same where they have user groups
(00:25:15):
that organize conferences.
(00:25:17):
Yeah.
(00:25:17):
So Java obviously is a big, massive open source community, open source software.
(00:25:24):
And I’m just wondering, was that your first experience with open source?
(00:25:29):
Was the Java community or have you been involved with other open source projects in the past as well?
(00:25:34):
so i’ve mostly done java or jvm languages so most open source projects i’m familiar
(00:25:42):
with are also in the java ecosystem and i did do a bit of open source
(00:25:49):
A few years ago,
(00:25:50):
I’m not as active now as I would like to be because there’s just so much that’s
(00:25:54):
interesting to spend time on.
(00:25:57):
But I was quite active in the cucumber community for a while working on cucumber
(00:26:02):
JVM and also the documentation for that documentation has lots of room for improvement,
(00:26:07):
but all of it was done,
(00:26:09):
you know,
(00:26:09):
in spare time.
(00:26:10):
don’t have professional technical writers working on that um and yeah occasionally
(00:26:15):
doing some stuff for cucumber jvm as well i’ve done some occasional like more like
(00:26:20):
incidental prs for other projects mostly like if you find something really tiny and
(00:26:27):
you’re like you know i could write i could
(00:26:29):
submit an issue for that or I could just fix it,
(00:26:31):
but more like typos and broken links and stuff like that.
(00:26:34):
So for that, I will submit a PR or if we have problems with a particular library, we will submit issues.
(00:26:43):
I remember right around the time of log4shell when we were urgently updating all the things.
(00:26:49):
We also ended up having the new version of log4j
(00:26:54):
combined with another library,
(00:26:57):
a minor version update of another library,
(00:26:59):
and it turned out there was a breaking change in the minor version of that other library.
(00:27:04):
that affected my team specifically because we were using specific cloud database and using this library.
(00:27:12):
We were the only team in the company who was using this library.
(00:27:15):
So we hit this breaking change and we had to,
(00:27:18):
well,
(00:27:19):
so I ended up filing an issue for that saying,
(00:27:21):
hey,
(00:27:22):
this happened.
(00:27:23):
I think they changed from using a method on the interface versus the implementation
(00:27:27):
of the interface,
(00:27:29):
which
(00:27:30):
or the method was no longer available because it was on the implementation,
(00:27:33):
but not on the interface,
(00:27:34):
something like that.
(00:27:35):
So I filed an issue for that.
(00:27:37):
And actually, a friend of mine who worked at that company at the time sent me a compliment over Slack.
(00:27:42):
Hey, nice issue filing.
(00:27:44):
Whereas I’m just thinking, you know, that’s just decent open source citizenship.
(00:27:49):
Find something, at least file an issue with all of the information that you can.
(00:27:53):
We’re all developers.
(00:27:54):
We know what information we need to be able to
(00:27:57):
reproduce this issue or analyze it further, et cetera.
(00:28:01):
And that’s just what you do.
(00:28:02):
But I’ve worked with people on my team who were like,
(00:28:05):
no,
(00:28:05):
no,
(00:28:05):
that seems like more work than I’d get paid for.
(00:28:08):
So let’s not do that, which I think is a shame.
(00:28:12):
But yeah.
(00:28:13):
Well,
(00:28:14):
I think,
(00:28:14):
you know,
(00:28:14):
not everyone really understands it until they actually experience it,
(00:28:19):
because it is somewhat unique in terms of contributing to the larger project.
(00:28:23):
I mean, you look at most professions, they’re fairly insular.
(00:28:26):
Science and software,
(00:28:28):
these are things that you sort of stand on the shoulders of others as you evolve
(00:28:33):
the whole base,
(00:28:34):
right?
(00:28:34):
Science is supposed to be open.
(00:28:36):
Sometimes it’s not.
(00:28:37):
But, you know, the software is supposed to be open.
(00:28:39):
Sometimes it’s not.
(00:28:40):
But in general, the default…
(00:28:43):
is to think in terms of the larger community and then you benefit from your contributions in there.
(00:28:49):
So it sounds like you’ve been contributing and you have been recognized by the Java Champions recently.
(00:28:55):
So talk a little bit about that.
(00:28:57):
I really don’t know what to say.
(00:28:59):
I had…
(00:29:01):
So there were a few Dutch developers that nominated me and someone that I know from
(00:29:07):
speaking at conferences who was also like,
(00:29:09):
oh,
(00:29:09):
I want to nominate you.
(00:29:10):
I’m like, I think someone is also working on that.
(00:29:14):
So touch base with them.
(00:29:17):
And they sent in the nomination and it was accepted.
(00:29:20):
I since then was added to the mailing list.
(00:29:24):
So I got to see what people said about my nomination, which was
(00:29:28):
Very, very nice.
(00:29:29):
People said very nice things.
(00:29:30):
I’m honored.
(00:29:31):
Thankful.
(00:29:32):
It was amazing.
(00:29:33):
And when the nomination finally came through was an interesting moment because I
(00:29:38):
had just closed my computer in my office,
(00:29:41):
went downstairs because dinner is ready.
(00:29:43):
My husband does most of the cooking,
(00:29:45):
which is amazing because,
(00:29:47):
you know,
(00:29:47):
one of the hardest things in adulting is figuring out what to have for dinner every night.
(00:29:51):
And I don’t have to.
(00:29:52):
Awesome.
(00:29:54):
so i went downstairs and all of a sudden my phone started beeping with people
(00:29:58):
sending me congratulations like it’s not my birthday what’s going on and then uh
(00:30:03):
alina yarenko over at gravian uh she sent me a screenshot of you know the fact that
(00:30:09):
the java championship was just announced i’m like oh my god that’s amazing so then
(00:30:14):
you know my husband was slightly annoyed with my phone beeping during dinner but it
(00:30:18):
was a great moment and it was just really nice to
(00:30:21):
you know,
(00:30:22):
have so many people in the community reach out and say nice things and be
(00:30:27):
supportive of each other,
(00:30:29):
as we mentioned earlier.
(00:30:30):
It was awesome.
(00:30:31):
Yeah, one of the things I do for Oracle is I facilitate that process.
(00:30:36):
So I’m the one who generated that screenshot, by the way.
(00:30:42):
I have it pinned to my Twitter feed.
(00:30:44):
Yes, that’s excellent.
(00:30:46):
So, you know, multiple votings and all this, you know, it’s a whole process.
(00:30:50):
And I basically facilitate all that online.
(00:30:54):
And I get a chance to read all the things that are happening before you know it’s even happening.
(00:30:59):
So it’s always very nice.
(00:31:00):
A lot of the,
(00:31:02):
or actually really all of the Java champions are so humbled by it in terms of being
(00:31:06):
chosen by their peers.
(00:31:07):
Again, it’s a peer review process.
(00:31:10):
Very much like peer review from the scientific community, you know.
(00:31:15):
So…
(00:31:16):
Congratulations because that was pretty recent actually.
(00:31:18):
Thank you.
(00:31:19):
What’s been really great is that I was just at a conference earlier last week and
(00:31:27):
ended up speaking with someone who was like,
(00:31:28):
oh,
(00:31:28):
by the way,
(00:31:29):
congrats on your Java championship.
(00:31:32):
It’s just really nice to have people who apparently know who I am and like what I’m doing.
(00:31:39):
So that’s really, really cool.
(00:31:41):
Okay.
(00:31:41):
So give me some advice here.
(00:31:43):
You’ve been around for a while.
(00:31:45):
You’ve done some amazing things.
(00:31:47):
You’ve been involved with these communities.
(00:31:49):
You have a really interesting degree in terms of your academic training of tech and psychology,
(00:31:55):
sociology,
(00:31:56):
that kind of thing.
(00:31:57):
If you’re talking to a kid,
(00:31:59):
young adults,
(00:32:00):
someone in their 20s in college or even high school,
(00:32:02):
and they’re interested in software,
(00:32:04):
they’re interested in tech,
(00:32:05):
but they’re a little bit,
(00:32:06):
oh,
(00:32:06):
you know,
(00:32:07):
AI,
(00:32:07):
you know,
(00:32:08):
they’re not going to need a lot of developers or,
(00:32:10):
you know,
(00:32:10):
whatever the situation is.
(00:32:12):
What do you tell someone who’s young, who’s learning right now?
(00:32:16):
in terms of would I recommend this field to them or?
(00:32:19):
Yeah,
(00:32:20):
like if they’re interested,
(00:32:21):
but they’re sort of unsure,
(00:32:22):
maybe not,
(00:32:23):
you know,
(00:32:24):
knowing what’s involved or is it going to be too hard or is it going to be jobs available?
(00:32:30):
Because, you know, the economic situation around the world is changing so dramatically.
(00:32:34):
a lot of up evil now and a lot of young people are you know nervous and and
(00:32:39):
apprehensive a little bit there’s it’s not like the world is calm right now okay so
(00:32:43):
there’s a lot of stress going on and so if you’re young you’re looking you’re
(00:32:47):
looking at your future saying wow this is this is some stressful times here but i’m
(00:32:52):
really interested in software i’m really interested in this what are the benefits
(00:32:56):
what you know what would you say
(00:32:57):
So I would say that especially if they’re really interested in software and in
(00:33:02):
building software and in solving problems,
(00:33:06):
I would absolutely recommend they go for it.
(00:33:08):
I understand that people are saying, oh, AI is going to take our jobs.
(00:33:12):
I’m not sure whether they will.
(00:33:16):
Right now, not with the state that it’s in right now.
(00:33:19):
I’ve been playing around with AI assisted coding and it can be a useful tool,
(00:33:25):
but you still need to evaluate the code that it gives you.
(00:33:28):
Much like,
(00:33:29):
you know,
(00:33:29):
if you’re searching Stack Overflow and you get a bunch of code,
(00:33:32):
you still need to evaluate whether that is the code that you want.
(00:33:36):
So some of those skills are the same and will remain the same.
(00:33:40):
You know, even if you build the code with AI assisted stuff, people will still have to maintain the code.
(00:33:46):
And yes, there are also tools that make that easier to do.
(00:33:50):
But also, you know, code is running more stuff now.
(00:33:56):
You know, a car used to be a mechanical thing.
(00:33:59):
Now it’s a computer on wheels, basically.
(00:34:01):
So there also is a growing need or demand for software.
(00:34:07):
So I think there will also still be a need for software developers in the future.
(00:34:12):
Of course, I’m not clairvoyant, so, you know, I could be wrong.
(00:34:15):
But yeah, I think so.
(00:34:17):
Something that I learned about in university is called the productivity paradox.
(00:34:22):
know if we have computers who can do all of the editing or you know word processors
(00:34:27):
who make writing documents a lot easier um won’t that make it easier to produce a
(00:34:32):
lot of stuff yes and no it turns out that we don’t actually produce more stuff we
(00:34:37):
just produce it differently but with
(00:34:39):
you know, having word processors making it easier to format your text.
(00:34:44):
Now you just spend part of your time making it easier to read and formatting your text.
(00:34:49):
So you’re not actually writing more.
(00:34:51):
You’re just spending some of your time making it look nicer or…
(00:34:54):
That’s really an interesting observation because where some people look at the
(00:34:58):
advanced tools now and it might scare them off,
(00:35:02):
what you’re saying is that it’s just another tool.
(00:35:04):
It may be super advanced, it may do different things, but you still have to interact with the tool.
(00:35:10):
And yeah, that’s a really interesting observation.
(00:35:12):
I think that helps calm me down.
(00:35:14):
I mean, I still got a ways to go, right?
(00:35:16):
Yeah.
(00:35:18):
Me too.
(00:35:19):
I’ve been in IT for 20 years.
(00:35:21):
I probably will be for at least 20 more before I retire, probably more like 30.
(00:35:27):
So I’m not even halfway.
(00:35:28):
That’s 50 years.
(00:35:29):
20 plus 30, that’s a long time.
(00:35:33):
That’s a long time.
(00:35:34):
Don’t tell anyone, you know, but I’ve been having fun for 20 years.
(00:35:39):
I hope I can have fun for at least 20 more.
(00:35:42):
So yeah,
(00:35:43):
I think the way that we will write software and the way that we will maintain
(00:35:47):
software might change and the tools that we use to do it might change.
(00:35:51):
But fundamentally,
(00:35:52):
it will be the same,
(00:35:53):
we need to properly understand the problem that we’re trying to solve.
(00:35:57):
break that up into smaller pieces and make sure that that’s the problem that we’re solving,
(00:36:02):
that there aren’t any negative side effects to how we solve it.
(00:36:06):
You know, the impact on society, et cetera, that we discussed earlier.
(00:36:10):
So, yeah, and it’s absolutely an interesting field.
(00:36:12):
It will be around, you know, unless there’s no more
(00:36:15):
chips and no more electricity, I think it’s a field that will continue to be around.
(00:36:22):
I think so.
(00:36:23):
And the demand for software developers is still growing.
(00:36:26):
And you have really advanced platforms like Java that are not state at all.
(00:36:31):
I mean, they’re the continuing evolution.
(00:36:34):
I mean, as you mentioned, like the release cycle, it’s not new anymore.
(00:36:37):
It’s like four years old, five years old at this point.
(00:36:39):
But everybody still mentions it.
(00:36:41):
It’s really interesting about that release cycle in terms of going every six months,
(00:36:46):
It’s been around.
(00:36:47):
It’s sort of expected now.
(00:36:49):
It’s no longer a story, but yet everyone keeps talking about it.
(00:36:53):
Everyone keeps mentioning how valuable it is to be able to speed up the process.
(00:36:59):
You have a faster cycle of releasing and you get a window into early development of
(00:37:05):
projects that you can either follow or actually contribute to.
(00:37:09):
Yeah.
(00:37:09):
And what’s interesting, though, is that, you know, as you mentioned as well, Java is very stable.
(00:37:16):
So,
(00:37:16):
you know,
(00:37:17):
it’s running banks and insurance companies and well,
(00:37:20):
online retail platforms,
(00:37:22):
everything really.
(00:37:23):
And it’s really stable.
(00:37:25):
And we do the developer ecosystem survey every year where we also ask what Java version are you on?
(00:37:32):
And 50 percent are still on Java 8.
(00:37:35):
So even with the faster release cycle and how excited everybody is about the
(00:37:40):
language improving and adding new features that make it easier to use,
(00:37:44):
A lot of people still aren’t using those and are still on older versions.
(00:37:48):
And I actually had someone reach out to me on Twitter because I said,
(00:37:52):
I’m curious why people stay on Java 8 and why they’re not upgrading to get,
(00:37:56):
you know,
(00:37:57):
all of the nice things.
(00:37:58):
And they said, well, you know, we have software.
(00:38:01):
It’s running.
(00:38:02):
It’s running stable.
(00:38:03):
Why should we upgrade?
(00:38:04):
And I mean, fair point, really.
(00:38:07):
If it works, you know, if it ain’t broken, why try to fix it?
(00:38:10):
Of course, you know, you might end up with urgent security vulnerabilities where you have to upgrade.
(00:38:16):
And then if the further behind you are, the more that’s going to hurt.
(00:38:20):
So I do generally believe in sort of following along where everybody else is,
(00:38:26):
along with,
(00:38:27):
you know,
(00:38:27):
the wider ecosystem and the versions that they are using.
(00:38:31):
Plus, you know, there are so many nice things that are added to Java.
(00:38:35):
Why wouldn’t you want to use them?
(00:38:36):
But I get the struggle of,
(00:38:38):
you know,
(00:38:38):
how are we going to convince our managers to take the time to upgrade to newer
(00:38:43):
versions if we can’t really,
(00:38:45):
you know,
(00:38:46):
pinpoint what the return on investment will be or what the benefits will be.
(00:38:50):
I remember I used to work at Sun on the Solaris, actually on the open Solaris project.
(00:38:54):
So I was in Solaris engineering.
(00:38:56):
And so that was, you know, Solaris, obviously it goes way back and similar situation.
(00:39:01):
We had these,
(00:39:01):
these,
(00:39:02):
all this new software,
(00:39:03):
which was state-of-the-art written by a lot of young people who did some really
(00:39:07):
innovative things and people running these old versions,
(00:39:10):
but they said it was beautiful.
(00:39:11):
It just ran,
(00:39:12):
you know,
(00:39:13):
they had machines that ran for years and years and years and they were just perfect.
(00:39:16):
Right.
(00:39:16):
Exactly.
(00:39:17):
But there comes a point where you do have to evolve.
(00:39:20):
But the thing is, you know, there was this thing with the Solaris engine is you can’t break anything.
(00:39:24):
So all the applications would continue running, you know, all the old applications.
(00:39:29):
And so it’s just an incredible thing when you get something like Solaris or Java or
(00:39:35):
Linux or some of these big systems that really have to be solid and have to be
(00:39:40):
secure and have to be scalable because they have to run very,
(00:39:43):
very seriously.
(00:39:45):
serious things, all the infrastructure of the world, essentially, all the digital infrastructure.
(00:39:51):
Okay, so let’s wrap up with this.
(00:39:53):
So you mentioned this issue of upgrading,
(00:39:56):
and I described it was the same thing at Sun with Solaris years ago,
(00:40:00):
trying to get customers and also developers to move along to the newer builds.
(00:40:07):
So can you, what are some of the benefits of some of the newer versions of Java that developers and large
(00:40:15):
institutions can benefit from.
(00:40:17):
So I’ve noticed that some of the newer features really make writing Java easier or
(00:40:25):
making Java easier to use,
(00:40:27):
making it less verbose,
(00:40:30):
making it less error prone by introducing new constructs or improving existing
(00:40:37):
constructs and making it much,
(00:40:40):
much easier to write Java these days than it was years ago.
(00:40:44):
So, you know, making developers
(00:40:47):
happy,
(00:40:48):
making them more productive,
(00:40:50):
making it easier for them to write good code,
(00:40:53):
which I think are all benefits that the business will benefit from whether they
(00:40:57):
know it or not.
(00:40:58):
So there’s that.
(00:40:59):
And of course,
(00:41:01):
also in terms of the ecosystem,
(00:41:03):
having worked on open source projects,
(00:41:05):
so specifically Cucumber JVM,
(00:41:07):
at some point we got the question,
(00:41:09):
so which version works on Java 7?
(00:41:11):
So if you’re using lots of libraries,
(00:41:13):
they might no longer support your Java version,
(00:41:16):
or they might not know which version of their software works.
(00:41:19):
supports that Java version,
(00:41:21):
you’re also not going to find maybe relevant information on how to use older
(00:41:26):
versions of the libraries that you want to use.
(00:41:29):
So yeah,
(00:41:30):
in general,
(00:41:30):
moving with the language and with the ecosystem around it will make your life a lot easier.
(00:41:37):
And it gives you access if you’re like a customer or some sort of institution.
(00:41:40):
I mean,
(00:41:40):
it gives you access to all these young developers because they are embracing the
(00:41:44):
bleeding edge,
(00:41:45):
you know,
(00:41:46):
and so it’s a way for you to mix your older people with your younger people.
(00:41:52):
And this is something I see at conferences all the time.
(00:41:54):
See, like, you know, old man like me walking around with a bunch of 20-year-olds.
(00:41:57):
It’s really, really cool.
(00:41:58):
When I was a son, I used to go to a lot of universities.
(00:42:01):
I had to do open solar stuff.
(00:42:03):
And I was so much older than these kids,
(00:42:05):
I really recognized that their thought process was very,
(00:42:09):
very different.
(00:42:10):
And so they just, because they’re obviously very, very young compared to me.
(00:42:14):
It’s not just having all the latest in technology, but that brings you access to new people as well.
(00:42:20):
So that’s how I look at it in my non-technical way.
(00:42:23):
Absolutely, because I’ve had, you know, as a developer, you have recruiters reach out and
(00:42:29):
You know, I’ve had them reach out with the latest technology, Java 8.
(00:42:33):
I’m like, you know, I’m not young, young.
(00:42:36):
I don’t like the bleeding edge, but Java 8 is definitely not the latest technology.
(00:42:40):
So, yeah, I would not apply for this job because I would like to be able to use newer stuff.
(00:42:47):
And I think that goes for a lot of people and especially, like you say, younger people.
(00:42:52):
And also, you know, we need the new blood and we need technology.
(00:42:57):
new developers to join and we need also people who maybe aren’t straight out of
(00:43:02):
computer science education but coming from different industries or different types
(00:43:08):
of jobs to join so that we can get more perspectives and build better software
(00:43:14):
together and have different perspectives represented in the team because I really
(00:43:19):
believe that that you know software development is a team sport and I love working
(00:43:23):
in teams with people where
(00:43:25):
They complement each other in terms of their knowledge, their perspectives, etc.
(00:43:31):
Excellent.
(00:43:31):
All right, Merit.
(00:43:32):
Well, that was a lot of fun.
(00:43:33):
I learned a lot, as usual.
(00:43:34):
I always learn when I talk to smart people.
(00:43:37):
And that’s why I do this, by the way.
(00:43:39):
I can’t actually do the work myself, but I just like talking to people.
(00:43:43):
I didn’t mean you couldn’t do the work, but talking to people is my favorite thing.
(00:43:48):
Okay.
(00:43:49):
So if I’m back in Europe or if I’m in the Netherlands for a conference,
(00:43:55):
I’ll certainly stop by and say hello and we can have a cup of coffee and talk more.
(00:44:00):
And yeah, or at any other events as well.
(00:44:03):
Sound good?
(00:44:03):
So you’re located in Japan?
(00:44:05):
Did I get that right?
(00:44:07):
Yeah, I’m in Japan.
(00:44:07):
It’s a long story.
(00:44:08):
Okay.
(00:44:11):
I want to find out how that happened.
(00:44:13):
Okay.
(00:44:14):
That’ll be part two.
(00:44:15):
Okay, cool.
(00:44:16):
All right.
(00:44:17):
We’ll see you soon.
(00:44:19):
Thank you.
(00:44:19):
Very nice to talk to you.
(00:44:20):
Bye-bye now.
(00:44:20):
Bye.