DevOps Speakeasy with Barry Burd & Richard Fichtner at #Devnexus 2023

hey y’all it’s Lori with jfrog and we

are at Dev Nexus this is day two and I’m

with Richard and Barry why don’t you

guys introduce yourselves Larry go ahead

I’m Barry bird I am a professor at Drew

University of mathematics and computer

science through University is a fun

liberal arts college in Madison New

Jersey United States boom hi I’m Richard

I run the joke obafox and I’m

co-organizer of the jcom conference in

Europe and also I do coordinate for only

for garden state job this is Java user

group and

New York Java City

okay so I met you both at The Jug leader

Summit this Monday Tuesday whenever it

was and so what would you what is why is

it important to have jokes first of all

why why are you jug leaders

the community

it’s it’s all I mean

you know sounds corny it’s all about

Community

um

the idea of software just being the the

photons that are inside the machine that

doesn’t work in our modern world we have

to be together we have to coordinate we

have to work together to build a

community so that we have a language

that’s vital that’s real that can be

used that’s part of the culture that

grows with the developers yeah

absolutely and you have to whine to

other developers and your peers uh how

how bad things are you know so it’s like

an AAA meeting

well yeah I mean I think through the bad

is where you find the good right like

because then you like share your common

problems and then somebody might have a

solution because they were stuck there

before right absolutely yeah yeah before

I uh started going to jugs

um I worked in isolation and I made too

many mistakes that I shouldn’t have made

mistakes not mistakes encoding just

mistakes and understanding what Java was

all about

so we just had Sean who did the keynote

Sean Phillips up here and he said one of

the things that was really important for

a new developer is to practice

socializing and socialization basically

he said the most successful people are

the ones that can communicate do you

think that’s a true statement

I I absolutely agree so as we’re coming

back from the virtual jobs

um going back to the in-person ones uh

this is what we see so this gives you so

much creativity

um uh his talk was very inspiring on

what do you do with javafx I never would

have thought of doing this and

um just like seeing that and and talking

to people about that gives me so much

new ideas what I can do what we can do

um so I totally agree

I’m going to add one thing to that

if you’re an introvert a very shy

developer

and you

can’t interact with other developers

don’t feel bad about that you’re you’re

alone you don’t you

mix in with people okay that success as

long as you’re not a jerk right jerks we

don’t like we don’t like people who

potty or unkind to people that’s it’s

important not to be like that but at all

these conferences and many talks so many

talks I hear about how important it is

to be

part of the community and outgoing and

as much as I feel as if that’s true I

also want to put a shout out to the

people who just don’t feel comfortable

doing that

you know try you know give yourself go

out of your comfort zone because it

really really pays off it helps you it

helps the community but if you can’t do

it

I’m okay with you as long as you’re nice

to other people I think it’s good to try

to find a buddy so like I think it’s

it’s funny people think of me as a very

extroverted person

um I am obviously at conferences and

things like that but if I had to do

networking on my own like for say like a

marketing event

I’m a Wallflower I get very nervous and

there’s something that I think about

this community that takes that

nervousness away from me and it’s so

nice like I don’t feel like I have to

compete with anyone I can talk to a

couple people they can introduce me

around and I think for the introverts

like I am at these other events I try to

find like the one person that maybe

knows the other people have my little

small conversation and then go back in

my home because it to me it’s super

overwhelming and I get very nervous to

your point very like scared intimidated

but at these events I feel like everyone

is on sort of a Level Playing Field and

I think when you hear talks of people

saying socialize get out there whatever

I think it’s a way of helping those

introverts know that we all start

somewhere for the first

eight Java ones that I went to I knew no

one and I wandered the hallways looking

for people’s faces that I might find

familiar and I remember one event in

particular I think it was six or seven

Java ones on where I went to their

Community appreciation event thinking I

would surely find someone that I could

talk to during the myth and I not a not

a single person

and then the things just developed for

me it just happened

um persistence I don’t know and I have a

high tolerance for

that kind of thing where you know you

don’t feel like you belong you feel

imposter syndrome but you just you just

feel like you got to do it because you

got to become part of this crowd yeah

um and and it’s paid off in Spades I

mean it’s just wonderful

so Richard you came to me and you said

we want to talk about this what are you

here to talk about today today yeah what

is this this is uh how we can make uh

Java more inclusive so this is a good

cue for that uh thank you Lori so uh we

did a talk yesterday about refactoring

to Java 20 and how Java is now a hip

language again

um

uh as is has never been before but yeah

you know what I mean so you’re saying

Java’s Not Dead uh no no no not this

year maybe next year again but uh this

is the tale that that’s that rolls by

every few months so Java’s dad and and

we see that it’s not and with the new

release Cadence

um and the new features that are coming

up uh we found that Java is a very hip

language wouldn’t you agree Barry I’ve

always found it here okay but yeah there

are lots of features that are being

added to Java to make it more in concert

with the way people are thinking about

software development there

um ever since they started the six-month

um release Cadence things have just

improved enormously in terms of keeping

up with those features that other

languages are developing and and adding

some of our own that are that are really

fantastic leapfrogging above the other

languages and and making things great I

mean I I I told you yesterday during our

before our talk

could take up the entire 50 minutes with

talking about what you can do with a

certain feature of Java switch

statements because they put so much love

into it absolutely yes

and there’s a new program

um that might be on the horizon soon

called the ramp up yeah program and

that’s uh

exciting especially for me because I do

most of my

Java work

um teaching students absolutely and

writing and writing for newbies and the

ramp up program is really going to be

good for them so how is this going to

help

you’ll be able to write

a very short hello world program that’s

that’s seriously going to help yeah yeah

no public static boy which I don’t care

you know public said bring it on that’s

fine but it turns beginners off right

we’ve got the solution is coming to that

the solution is going to be very excited

so when you think about like boot camps

and stuff like that I never really hear

about like Java boot camps or more like

python go like how are you getting this

next generation of developers really

interested in a language that to your

point people call Dead all the time or

it’s old not hip like how how are you

sort of turning the tide on that

so what I like to do is I like to

explore like the career opportunities

for Java and I always say so you can

choose different languages and I’m not

judging here but just from my experience

and how Java helped me so

um I I got into it by like maybe

accident I don’t know so I I don’t think

it was like a very uh a choice for me

but I just went into the space and but I

found with all the things that are going

on with growl we am with open jdk so

many vendors joining in so we have we

have Lucia from Microsoft this is like

this is great so

um and I’m not focusing my career on

like one big company that may decide not

to do it anymore because it’s not cool

anymore but there are so many different

companies it’s so diverse so I’m pretty

sure that I will have a job with my Java

knowledge in in a few years and I can

still like pay for the shoes of my kids

and stuff like that

one you won’t have to pay for their

shoes they’ll pay for their own nice so

yeah that’s always on the horizon yes

and then there’s College oh well anyway

um right

um I I the way I do it is that when I

teach Java I approach it with a certain

enthusiasm and passion

there’s something about Java that just

says to me this is the right way to do

things or let’s put it this way it is

one very right way to do things there

are other right ways but

Java hits a sort of sweet spot in terms

of object oriented programming for me

that says

if I’m going to teach it and if I’m this

is going to be the first impression

that’s that my students have of object

oriented programming Jama is is now the

place to do that

and so when I teach Java it’s not in a

monotone it is it’s with you know my

hands out and my I’m jumping in front of

the class right I can I can attest to

that yes fully agreed right and all the

jokes right yeah all the bad jokes also

oh bad jokes bad jokes

okay so Sean mentioned and I thought

this was really cool that he included it

in his presentation open source and he

gave a lot of love to open source

developers so how do you feel about open

source and again is like sort of an

entryway to start writing your own Java

programs

you were first

I’m I’m drawing a blank right now okay

that no worries yeah so

um I I absolutely agree so I built my

career in open source so I worked on

open source projects for the last 15

years or so and um it’s a great way to

get into the space to learn to see

um but I would not uh recommend to do it

on your own find a drug find a body that

can help you understand how it works uh

most projects are very very welcoming

and open that’s the whole Java Community

is but there are still like some kind of

like frustration points you can get

easier over with if you have a body so

if you do a pull request and nobody

looks at it and you like get frustrated

that can happen but this is not like uh

because somebody don’t like you or you

did a bad job just maybe you didn’t hit

like uh the right spot or you didn’t

have the light the the right guidance on

that point so people do not recognize

that you are new and you need a little

bit extra help to get into it so that’s

okay because nobody was born with this I

can do to pull request on that really

big project so start out find the body

and just do it

what he said okay any last words

and AI so uh Frank presented uh

API so we are very hip we can do AI

because everything has to be like AIML

so there’s AI API standardization going

on uh from Frank you know better right

visual recognition yes yes and that’s

really exciting because that’s an area

that that well it’s an exciting area and

Java needs to be in that space

cool sexy stuff okay and it is now with

France and zorhands

okay so uh go home go home Python and go

Java

all right thanks guys okay