Still a few hours left to submit another CfP to @amsterdam.voxxeddays.com 😅

Coming April I'll be visiting the @jcon.one conference in Cologne again, which next to a nice lineup of inspiring talks also has a great hallway track. I'll also be speaking about documenting decisions with MADR, so hope to see everyone there! Last years recap is available here: youtu.be/5CwMLcp70wg

Devs who write about their work/company; talk at conferences - lots of companies in the past used to not care much about this and not value it the least. Feels like the tide is changing: people who do this but are not valued get hunted down by companies who understand this value

CFP BONUS TIPS! Differentiate your proposal 🔸 Make sure your proposal stands on its own 🔸 Don't send multiple proposals on similar subjects Provide supporting materials 🔸 Send a link to a talk you've done before 🔸 Or shoot a short video of you talking about your topic ➡️ devoxxuk26.cfp.dev

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐉-𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 2026 𝐢𝐬 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 We’re excited to announce that J-Spring 2026 will take place on 4 June in Utrecht. You can submit your session proposals. Call for Papers closes: 28 February 2026 Submit here: sessionize.com/jspring26

Thanks to great input by @bmarwell.de, verified bluesky now also supports Apache Foundation Member verification 🥳 Thanks a lot! With the same update, I have also removed support for conference verification as there was very limited demand by organizers and speakers

Pro tip for everyone submitting to tech conferences. Include a video of a previous talk or create one pitching your talk. Delivery is just as important as the topic. Don't assume the program committee is familiar with you. You need to convince the PC that your submission is of sufficient quality.

Java Conferences with closing CFP in the next 15 days: Voxxed Days Amsterdam Closes: 19 December 2025 Java Day Istanbul Closes: 15 December 2025 Voxxed Days Bucharest Closes: 21 December 2025 If you want to add your conference, please submit it at https://javaconferences.org/

CFP Tip 8: Check your categories 🔸 Make sure you select the right track, session type & event when you submit 🔸 Incorrect categorisation can result in submissions getting missed 🔸 When you're ready, hit send! Don't leave your proposal in drafts 😊 Submit here ➡️ devoxxuk26.cfp.dev

Great to see our colleague Nupur on wave 1 of the featured sessions, looking forward to JCON next year 👍

While I agree with most of the post, I don't think social media is dead. Instead it's changing to be from quantitive to filtered quality due to the slop (which existed before chatGPT as well! It's simply easier now). Don't let the FOMO hit you and unfollow those posting things you don't like 👍

Well deserved Championship for Lando Norris, and amazing work by Verstappen catching up so close 👍 Looking forward to next year what the new regulations will bring - at least DRS will be gone.

CFP tip 5: Use AI with caution 🔸Use AI as a tool not the author 🔸Reviewers get tired of reading similar-sounding submissions 🔸AI is good for spell-checking & grammar 🔸Fact-check anything AI generates for you 🗓️ 6&7 May | devoxx.co.uk

Looks like our "How to prepare for the Russians nuking the nearby airbase into oblivion or other mishaps" letter has arrived. Guess I'll have some reading to do this weekend 👍

For folks looking to reduce their dependencies on big tech, subscriptions, vendor lock-in and want to own their stuff, take a look at the posts below. Probably hard for the non-tech savvy, but some principles can be applied by non-techies too!

#Java 26 enters rampdown phase 1 today, which sets its feature set in stone. The latest inside Java Newscast goes over the full list (don't click, it's boring): www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPX5...

CFP Tip 4: the first two sentences are vital! 🔸Keep your title focused 🔸People skim-read the title of an abstract to choose which sessions to go to 🔸This is your shop window - make your opening sentences engaging & clear 🗓️ 6&7 May | ℹ️ devoxx.co.uk Our CFP is open now - time to get involved 🚀

This is at big tech companies. Imagine how it is at but normal companies. Better or worse? https://www.seangoedecke.com/bad-code-at-big-companies/

My plans for visiting [at least] 30 JUGs in 2025 to commemorate Java’s 30th anniversary fell short due to recent employment change (still seeking btw). Only made it to 19 at 🇳🇱🇧🇪🇺🇸🇵🇪🇨🇭🇳🇴🇱🇹 Perhaps I can reach the goal next year before Java turns 31, we’ll see 😉

CFP Tip 2: The talk title 🔸First impressions matter so make it interesting, snappy and relevant 🔸 Ensure the title reflects the content of your talk 🔸Make it stand out, especially if it’s on a topic that is covered often 🔸Be cautious about using humour 🗓️ 6&7 May | ℹ️ devoxx.co.uk

This was such a great watch, many nice anecdotes and a very natural and charismatic Linus answering questions from viewers and 'the other' Linus. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfv0...

Today I learned you can gaslight your colleagues by adding <skiptests>true</skiptests> to the configuration of your maven-failsafe-plugin in the pom...

Netherlands mentioned 👍 (multiple times even 🤦) www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPcd...

#java rock stars ✨

Last in person talk of the year: speaking at @jugnoord.bsky.social with @ammbra1508.bsky.social

Catching up on quantum cryptography and security with @ammbra1508.bsky.social at @jugnoord.bsky.social

@maritvandijk.bsky.social sharing productivity tips for Intellij IDEA while showcasing Java 25 at @jugnoord.bsky.social 🤩

Did my first Python programming ever for a backend training this week. Can't say I'm impressed, nor liking it with so many alternative languages out there 😔 Still seems nice for AI and scripting though 😅

Short blog, but I think it really hits the spot on the skills great software engineers have 👍 terriblesoftware.org/2025/11/25/w...

Had an amazing time at @nljug.bsky.social #JFall 🍁 about 3 weeks ago! 🎉 It’s one of those conferences that feels like a warm community gathering! Gave my talk “Making Sense of Vector Databases” to a packed room: great energy & feedback! Big thanks to the organizers for making it awesome as always! 🙏

JUnit is undoubtedly one of the most important projects in the #Java ecosystem. And it's 100% free and open! Let me be frank: If we can't get THIS project to the point where a single maintainer can focus on it, then what does that say about our commitment to Free & Open Source Software? 1/3 ⏩

"ADRs as lightweight documentation" -- we need more of this 👍👍

If you use reflection in #Java, be aware that, starting with JDK 26, you may have to add a command-line option or two to keep it working. Alternatively (and recommended), move away from reflective final field mutation. Details in the latest Inside Java Newscast: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdHk...

People that complain GraalVM native builds are slow still live in the stone age 😅 Obviously native builds will remain slower, but the improvements the Graal team made the past years on the compiler (and resource usage!) are seriously impressive 👍

Speaking of time bombs in the tech ecosystem, here’s another one:

The late Jared Richardson said something similar regarding inheritance of a legacy codebase: hit it with a bat Build Automate Test If it hurts, do it more often til it doesn‘t. And no, it doesn‘t mean getting used to the pain, rather fix it so that it stops hurting

The idea of the internet was to have a decentralized network of computers. But what we have today is a network with big players like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Cloudflare. If one if these players fail, like Cloudflare currently, a large part of the internet fails. We should go back.

(comic) We’re just finishing up… said every meeting ever

Spring Framework 7.0.0 dropped last week, laying the foundation for the next generation of Spring apps. Coming up this week: Spring Security 7.0.0 Spring Integration 7.0.0 Spring GraphQL 2.0.0 Spring Kafka 4.0.0 Spring AMQP 4.0.0 (among others) And of course, Spring Boot 4!🔥

Got so excited reading this article by @grimalkina.bsky.social that I just had to come and share it. I've often been a champion (esp. users and developers of software systems), but it also meant that I was often branded as a "rebel". www.fightforthehuman.com/empirical-se...

I have a technique I call incompetence-based-mutation-testing. Start making some changes. Bork everything, comment out half the existing code to just make stuff compile. Run tests. Watch tests pass. Stop refactoring, go have a stern word with the tests.

After a year of work, we are happy to share that Spring Framework 7.0 GA is now available! spring.io/blog/2025/11... Time to celebrate, get a bit of rest and help the team to prepare Spring Boot 4.0 GA release planned November 20th 😊 #spring #java

At this year's @devoxx.com I had a chat with @smarks.bsky.social on ensuring immutable collections when creating a Java record. His suggestion was interesting enough to warrant a new blog post on the subject: codeadventures.littlebluefrog.nl/posts/09-col...

Speaking of the ING Backend summit: the 'Learning modern Java the playful way' recording of @maritvandijk.bsky.social and @piotrprz.bsky.social has been made available externally at our 'We are ING Tech' channel on YouTube! 🤩 You can find it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=acKL...

The Stream gatherers released with Java 24 were a popular topic at our ING backend summit this year with @coduinix.bsky.social and Patrick Hooijer covering this as the main subject of their talk. Looking forward to José's insights tomorrow!

This is your chance to share a stage with Java's greatest. (Or with me if you're unlucky.)

Andres is one of the best devrels I've worked with the past years, so if you have an opportunity for him reach out!

Not all answers to your questions about the Inside #Java Newscast made it into the jubilee episode and so I posted the remaining ones to my channel - about how the team works together, how much I still code, how AI may impact my work, and more: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TypH...

A depressing, but accurate, thread. I do my best to provide knowledge from my 40 years of experience (and book/paper reading) in my coaching, classes, and especially my live coding stream. Sometimes feels futile, but even one person telling me how much they learned helps so much.

I see '⏰ answer "Valhalla, when?"', I click 🤩