Update Your JDK, Read More Code, and Talk to Your Users: Interviews From VoxxedDays Amsterdam (#93)

In this episode of the Foojay Podcast, we're bringing you something special: a full batch of hallway-track conversations recorded live at VoxxedDays Amsterdam. Fifteen guests, one conference, and one theme that kept coming back, whether we planned it or not: Java has grown up quietly, steadily, and in ways that still surprise people who haven't looked lately. We talked about migrating between versions, new features in the latest Java releases, authorization done right, AI-assisted coding, cryptography, containers, open-source contributions, GDPR data experiments, and, yes, the things people hate about Java but secretly love. I spoke with Ko Turk, who organized this very conference, Johannes Bechberger, Lutske de Leeuw, Aicha Laafia, Marit van Dijk, Adele Carpenter, Patrick Baumgartner, Sohan Maheshwar, Jeroen Egelmeers, Erwin Manders, Alexander Shopov, Maarten Verburg, Arjan Tijms, Joost Kaan, and Stephan Janssen. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of opinions. And somehow, they mostly agree: update your JDK, read your code, and please talk to your actual users. Content 00:00 Introduction 00:30 Ko Turk https://www.linkedin.com/in/ko-turk-b271b929/ Organizer of VoxxedDays Amsterdam Migrating between Java versions 02:25 Johannes Bechberger https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannes-bechberger/ Java is boring, and that's why it's brilliant Java 26 test it, but not in production JFR improvements in the latest versions 06:28 Lutske de Leeuw https://www.linkedin.com/in/lutske/ Volunteer at the conference Java is boring, and that's why it's brilliant Java 5 till 26 evolutions 10:35 Aicha Laafia https://www.linkedin.com/in/aicha-laafia-0266a6126/ Lambda stream gatherers in Java 25 Simpler and more fun code Update your JDK! 16:16 Marit van Dijk https://www.linkedin.com/in/maritvandijk/ Fun in coding, write Java the playful way Java evolutions and how writing code has evolved Importance of code reading with AI-assisted coding 22:04 Adele Carpenter https://www.linkedin.com/in/adele-carpenter-a988623a/ The things I hate about Java, but actually love it 27:37 Patrick Baumgartner https://www.linkedin.com/in/patbaumgartner/ Organizing VoxxedDays Zurich Spring Boot optimization Using Buildpacks to create better containers 35:02 Sohan Maheshwar https://www.linkedin.com/in/sohanmaheshwar/ Authorization, the good way JWT is a bad idea 38:34 Jeroen Egelmeers https://www.linkedin.com/in/jegelmeers/ https://craftingaiprompts.org/documentation/se-framework/craft-framework AI, prompt engineering, agentic programming The CRAFT Framework: Orchestrating Agentic Flow The importance of interacting with your end-users 43:32 Erwin Manders https://www.linkedin.com/in/erwinman/ Cryptography, digital signatures, and securing data and messages Comparing Kotlin and Java 45:12 Alexander Shopov https://www.linkedin.com/in/alshopov/ Developer at Uber Comparing different languages: Java, Python, Go How Java is modernizing by learning from other languages 49:18 Maarten Verburg https://www.linkedin.com/in/maartenverburg/ Using your own GDPR data for fun experiments Comparing early Java with the current status Java Streams the most important change 52:35 Arjan Tijms https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjantijms/ https://omnifish.ee/ Jakarta Faces, Security, Authentication and Authorization, EE,... Jakarta specs are used in Spring How Java evolved and is still evolving How can you contribute to opensource 59:55 Joost Kaan https://www.linkedin.com/in/joost-kaan/ What you can learn at a conference, besides the expected language-related talks AI influences on the developer work Contributing to the Java community, AI user group 01:03:52 Stephan Janssen https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanjanssen/ https://geniebuilder.ai/ The importance of the "Hallway Track" where you can chat with like-minded people Using AI-assisted spec-driven coding Talking to your end-user becomes more important than ever 01:09:00 Conclusion