Hello Marcus! For those who have never heard of JavaLand and you: What is your role at this lighthouse event for the Java community?
Hello Marcos! In order to support the realization of JavaLand, I am involved in various areas. I've been a member of the program committee for several years and part of the great team that sifts through hundreds of submissions every year to put together a varied program. Which is not so easy with so many interesting submissions. I would love to choose them all!
In addition, starting this year I'm taking over the organization of the JavaLand Studio, with which we will fill the lecture breaks during JavaLand with great activities. Finally, as a representative of the Java User Group Switzerland, I am also contributing a community event: The JavaLand rally is all about getting as many participants as possible to come together by bike.
So I am involved in JavaLand in one way or another throughout the year. It's just fun to organize such an event together with the great colleagues from the community!
...an event that previously took place at Phantasialand and was firmly anchored in the community there. Now the anniversary edition of JavaLand will take place at the Nürburgring. If I were to put the sentence in your mouth, "When I think of the Nürburgring, then...", how would you continue it?
When I think of the Nürburgring, I now think of JavaLand. Because we've been planning JavaLand at the Nürburgring for months, this connection has become deeply engraved in my brain. And I'm looking forward like a little kid to being able to see and explore everything in reality in April 2024. I've never been to the Nürburgring before and have planned plenty of time to discover all the new attractions. But I also have the jitters when I think about the Nürburgring. It's in the Eifel and getting there with a bike full of luggage will certainly be a big challenge.
What is in the luggage of a participant who is a member of the program committee and arrives on his two-wheeler? How are you preparing for this tour and the anniversary?
As I'm traveling by bike, I only have limited space for luggage apart from the usual travel stuff. But the notebook is part of it, I can't do without it. On the one hand, I need it for planning the studio, and then there are also very interesting community activities, such as the Hackergarten, which are simply much more fun with your own notebook. I also have a lot of stickers in my luggage, from the Java User Group Switzerland as well as great rally stickers with a bicycle Duke, which anyone can get from me. Just ask! And don't forget to bring plenty of curiosity and a good mood! That's all you need. Everything else is included in the JavaLand!
Speaking of "everything else": What are you particularly interested in at JavaLand?
For me, the community activities come first, followed by the presentations. Especially with the activities contributed by all the Java User Groups, there are so many interesting things and opportunities to actively discover new things and make real friends.
The community program for this year is still under construction. But what I've already seen - the process is transparent for everyone via GitHub - makes me very curious. For example, there is an activity by Karl Heinz Marbaise about how easy it is to contribute to an open source project and what options there are for doing so. This also fits in very well with the Hackergarten, where you can do exactly that together: Contribute to open source and work on, experience, learn, achieve something together in the process.
It gets more difficult every year with the presentations. There are simply so many to choose from. It's not easy to decide. This year I would like to concentrate a little more on Core Java, "back to the roots" so to speak. Development has progressed so rapidly in recent years that it's really fun to work with Java again. It feels so much more modern. At the top of my list this time are virtual threads (Christian Schuster on Tuesday, April 9 at 2 p.m.), string templates (Falk Sippach on Tuesday, April 9 at noon), how strings work under the hood (Bernd Müller on Tuesday, April 9 at 5 p.m.) and I also need to get to grips with pattern matching (Cay Horstmann on Wednesday, April 10 at 3 p.m.). Another thing I definitely don't want to miss is the look into the future with an introduction to quantum computer programming (Walery Strauch on Tuesday, April 9 at 3 pm).
Let's take another look: This winter we were able to breathe a sigh of relief, the (working) world was no longer in the 'COVID stranglehold'. What do you think has changed for the better in the Java world as a result of the pandemic?
During the pandemic, I worked as a Scrum Master for a health insurance company. We were doing pretty well, we weren't affected by short-time working like so many others and didn't have to worry about losing our jobs. But if there's one good thing that has remained even after coronavirus, it's the improved work-life balance. It's strange that it took a pandemic for that to happen. Like so many large companies, we were rather conservative when it came to working from home and it was often only an exception. Working from home during the coronavirus era has won over many former skeptics and is now simply part of normal working life. The flexibility gained and the elimination of commuting times improve the work-life balance enormously. All in all, I have to say that the pandemic itself has brought us a big step forward - and in some cases back down to earth: We humans can't control everything.
Finally, please tell us which blog or media you use to keep up to date with Java and the associated ecosystem or relevant topics?
I used to be on Twitter/X, but I haven't logged in there for over a year. That's been replaced by Mastodon, where you can find anyone and everyone of note from the Java environment, as well as all the community members and communities themselves. This is my main source for all my information, links, blog posts, news etc.
I follow several dozen people from the Java Bubble and so I always stay informed. By the way, there is a great website about the Java Bubble with an extensive directory with hundreds of names and where you can find the corresponding profiles in the various networks. This is very helpful for tailoring an informative feed. Of course, JavaLand itself is also represented on Mastodon! Be sure to follow it immediately for the latest updates on the conference! The Java aktuell magazine is also very important to me. Every two months there is a great selection of articles, all of which originate from the community. So not from professional authors, but from people who know what they are writing about. I do my daily work with Linux, so for me a daily visit to LinuxNews is part of it, and for general technical news I like to visit Golem.
Thank you very much for the interview, Marcus!
