DevOps Speakeasy with Brian Vermeer @BrianVerm at #Devnexus 2023

hey y’all this is Lori uh with jfrog

here at Dev Nexus and I’m sitting with

the man the myth the legend Brian

Vermeer

you like that this is a good intro I

like that intro yeah definitely that’s

one of the best intros I ever had that’s

what I’m here for thank you so bride and

I happen to be co-organizers of v-jug

which is the virtual Java user group but

you’re also an organizer of nljug true

so tell us all the things jug related

all the things jug related well

basically jug is all about community

that is the base of pretty much

everything and making sure that people

connect together I mean um the NL jug is

the Nationwide joke for the Netherlands

and next to that there are different

jugs City related like Amsterdam Utrecht

that kind of thing and we operate

independently and we support each other

so there’s no official connection

between us but we help each other out

when needed

um the analogic doesn’t do it doesn’t do

any meetups for instance we organize two

conferences Jay fall in the fall and Jay

spring in the spring okay has nothing to

do with the framework so um and yeah uh

next to that we have a lot we have about

I think about 1500 1600 members

um

printed magazine every every quarter for

all members we have some we connect them

with companies but also we try to make

build a bridge between colleges and

universities and companies when when

they are looking for for uh to hire

people

um so yeah basically all sorts of things

so you print a magazine yes

so that’s kind of old school that is old

school but it makes us that it’s an

asset uh you can also have it digitally

but it’s like the one thing you every

every quarter you get a magazine that is

written by members like articles that

members come up with uh printed on your

doorstep on your doormat

um yeah that’s something that we do and

people still like it and so speaking of

old school you have two conferences

which I think everyone is going to say

conference is their old school but we

love them so tell us more about Jay

spring and Jay fall

um well J spring is a flagship

conference uh I think it’s like eight or

nine tracks one day uh

again 1500

or like 1500 people that’s the amount of

people we have and at the at the at the

conference our whole membership is like

three thousand so like we can we can uh

um we can only have half of the members

in there uh the thing is with your

membership uh your ticket for jfall is

free and uh basically we have people

from all over the world speaking there

uh trying to connect both Juniors and

senior level uh developers

um

and the thing is that for us I work on

the program committee

getting the content information is

important but if I talk to the attendees

the hallway track’s the most important

part as in meeting each other again face

to face it was sold out within 10

minutes last time it’s it’s free as in

it’s included in your membership fee but

you need to be on time to get there and

it’s it was like all tickets were gone

in in 10 minutes because people wanted

to meet up again I think it’s very very

it is old school but it’s also very

important to meet people again face to

face exactly so what is some of the

content that you are looking most

forward to seeing while you’re here

well I’m here yeah a bunch of different

things uh obviously in the security

space I am in that that kind of stuff

but also like what’s what’s new and

upcoming uh in in the newer in the new

Java releases

um

yeah a little bit of everything so it’s

there’s not there’s not a particular

talk it’s I’m just looking at what is on

the schedule and which one which one am

I going out okay so we run V jug and we

kind of put an end to V jug for a little

bit Yeah and we’re coming back though

right yes definitely

definitely I want to come back yeah

today I mean we we did virtual before

virtual became became popular we did we

did the virtual’s old school I mean we

did it we did it we did it before

everybody did it so we’re happy to be

back at conferences live but we also

want to promote some of the online

content that we’re doing I think that’s

um

that’s a good thing I mean there are a

lot of people that are not able to come

to conferences in real life or meetups

in real life to have it have proper

content live streamed uh is something uh

well it’s a bit of an accessibility kind

of thing right if you’re not able to go

to that that Meetup because it’s a long

travel or something like that it makes

sense to have it online yeah so Brian V

jug NL jug speaker travels conference

talks all the things if you could leave

our audience with one message what would

it be

wow

with one message yeah

um talk to people

talk to people connect uh online is

great Khan there’s a lot of there’s a

lot of information a lot of content that

you can read online YouTube videos sure

but connect to people speak to people

Exchange

thoughts ideas because you can only get

better out of that so that’s the one

thing like in person

speaking to each other sharing ideas

um that’s so valuable yeah yeah

Community we got this absolutely thank

you so much sure anytime bye y’all

cheers