I'm Josh Long (@starbuxman), a humble Spring developer advocate at @VMWare, and this is A Bootiful Podcast (@BootifulPodcast), a celebration of the real heroes that drive ecosystems.
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October 16, 202632 min
Can Java be more performant than Rust? Andrew Lombardi has the numbers
Hi, Spring fans! What happens when a longtime Kotlin and JVM fan - my friend Andrew Lombardi - decides to take on the latest “rewrite everything in Rust” hype with AI in the driver’s seat? In this episode, Josh sits down with community legend Andrew Lombardi for a fast, funny, and deeply technical conversation about his wild experiment: porting a real application to Kotlin to see how it stacks up against the much-hyped Rust rewrite. Andrew breaks down what sparked the project, why the original benchmark caused such a stir, and how AI made what would once have been an unthinkable rewrite suddenly feel like a practical weekend challenge. Along the way, he digs into token costs, benchmarking pitfalls, caching surprises, framework parity, JVM performance, memory tradeoffs, and why Kotlin’s readability and type system make it a compelling choice for large systems. If you care about performance, architecture, AI-assisted development, or just want to hear two seasoned developers gleefully dissect a spicy tech controversy, this one is absolutely worth a listen.
October 8, 202648 min
legendary Java developer Kohsuke Kawaguchi
Hi, Spring fans! In this episode, we catch up with one of the most influential engineers in modern Java history - Kohsuke Kawaguchi - for a wide-ranging conversation that’s equal parts tech retrospective, career reflection, and future-gazing. It all starts with a chance reunion at a Java documentary screening in the Bay Area, where familiar faces from Sun and Oracle, old friends, and long-time admirers gathered to celebrate the ecosystem that shaped a generation. From there, the conversation opens up into a fascinating tour through the history of Java, XML, and the tools that quietly powered the industry. Our guest looks back on his work at Sun, where he helped build XML and web services infrastructure in the JDK, and on the hobby projects that became beloved utilities for developers everywhere. We hear the origin stories behind Com4J, his XML schema validator, and his daemonization tool, along with the ideas that made them so useful in the first place: making Java more practical on the desktop, in Windows environments, and in the messy real world of software integration. Of course, no conversation with him would be complete without talking about Jenkins. He shares the story of how a personal frustration with broken builds led to Hudson, then Jenkins, and eventually to one of the most important CI platforms ever created. We dig into why it took off, what problem it solved, and how its plugin-based architecture reflected a broader philosophy of openness and modularity. Then the conversation turns to the present and future. He explains Launchable, the company he started to make test execution and CI workflows dramatically more efficient, and how that work eventually found its way back into CloudBees. From there, we shift gears entirely into his current chapter: time away from full-time leadership, long-distance cycling adventures across France and Italy, cooking, travel, and the kind of creative freedom that comes from stepping back. And yes, we go deep on AI. What does someone who has spent decades building developer infrastructure think about coding agents, open models, and the future of software? His take is thoughtful, practical, and unmistakably informed by years of shipping real tools: AI is changing software development fast, but the winning systems may be the ones that integrate intelligence into existing workflows rather than forcing everyone into one giant chat interface. If you care about Java history, CI/CD, open source culture, developer tools, or just hearing a brilliant engineer think out loud about where technology is headed next, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
October 1, 202652 min
JReleaser creator and fellow Java Champion Andres Almiray
Hi, Spring fans! What if the JVM could feel as frictionless as the modern dev tools people rave about on other platforms? In this wide-ranging, high-energy conversation, you’ll hear two longtime friends (Andres Almiray is a fellow Java champion and a legend) geek out over the future of desktop Java, the pain of Electron, the elegance of JavaFX, and the tools making it all easier to ship. The discussion dives into a brand-new favorite workflow for managing environments and dependencies, then pivots into the powerhouse that is JReleaser — the tool that helps Java projects publish releases, package native installers, generate distribution bundles, compute signatures and checksums, post announcements to social platforms, and even automate releases across GitHub, GitLab, Maven Central, and more. Along the way, they explore how JReleaser powers everything from desktop apps to command-line tools, how it fits with JLink and JPackage, why it’s become essential for projects like JBang and more, and how it’s helping make Java distribution feel modern again. If you care about shipping software cleanly, packaging it beautifully, or just want to hear passionate builders talk about making developer life better, this one is packed with insight, nostalgia, and a lot of “wait, it does that too?” moments.
September 24, 202639 min
Michael Carducci on optimizing data for agentic workflows
Hi, Spring fans! In this episode, I sit down with Michael Carducci - software architect, magician, and knowledge graph expert—for a high-energy conversation about the future of AI. Michael breaks down why semantic data and auditable, deterministic reasoning are becoming essential for building trustworthy AI systems that actually work in production. If you’re curious about what’s next beyond bigger models and more tokens, this one is packed with big ideas, sharp insights, and a few surprises along the way. #ai #magic #knowledge #graph
September 17, 20261 hr 1 min
Spring Tools lead Martin Lippert
Hi, Spring fans! In this conversation, Spring Tools lead Martin Lippert joins us for a fascinating look at how developer tooling has evolved from Eclipse to VS Code and beyond. We dig into the architecture behind Spring Tools, language servers, MCP, and how the same ideas that once helped developers stay in flow are now helping AI coding agents understand Spring projects better. If you care about the future of Java, IDEs, and AI-assisted development, this one’s packed with insight.
September 10, 202655 min
Netflix’s Paul Bakker
Hi, Spring fans! This week’s interview is a must-watch if you care about where Java is headed next. This week, I talk to Netflix's Paull Bakker! We dig into Netflix’s real-world playbook for scaling Java, cutting costs with newer JDKs, and replacing reactive complexity with virtual threads and structured concurrency. Plus, there’s a sneak peek at the exciting future of Java, from AI-powered tooling to the upcoming Valhalla era.
September 3, 202643 min
BellSoft’s Catherine Edelveis on hardened runtime images, container security, and more
Hi, Spring fans! I chat with BellSoft’s Catherine Edelweiss about using buildpacks and hardened images to ship Spring Boot apps with stronger security, cleaner defaults, and far less Dockerfile pain. #BellSoft #Docker #Java #JRE #SpringBoot
August 27, 202630 min
Joe Grandja on Spring Authorization Server, OAuth, and so much more
Hi, Spring fans! In this episode, I talk Spring Security’s Joe Grandja about Spring Authorization Server’s graduation into Spring Security 7, and the new security heavyweights DPoP and PAR.
August 20, 202658 min
JRuby lead Charles Nutter
In this episode, we sit down with the lead of the JRuby project for a fascinating look at how Ruby and the JVM came together, how JRuby became a production-ready powerhouse, and why it still matters today. We dig into threading, performance, Invoke Dynamic, Project Loom, Panama, Valhalla, and the future of dynamic languages on the JVM. If you care about Ruby, Java, open source, or building faster, more scalable systems, you’ll want to hear this conversation with fellow Java Champion and long-serving lead of JRuby, Charles Nutter.
August 13, 202656 min
Redouble AI CTO Andrey Santrosyan on the pitfalls of agentic systems in the enterprise
Hi, Spring fans! In this installment, my friend James Ward and I sat down with Redouble AI CTO and founder Andrey Santrosyan This was an extra special episode because I conducted the interview with my friend, AWS' James Ward. * https://www.linkedin.com/in/santrosyan/ * https://redouble.ai
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