This program is unfortunately no longer active so the episodes here represent the archive from 2022 to 2026 when I worked at Oracle in Java Developer Relations. Duke’s Corner is dedicated to Java developers and covers conversations exploring the core technology and the people building the community around the world. grisanzio.substack.com
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June 9, 202611 min
Martin Chalupa at JavaOne 2026
Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Martin Chalupa from Netflix at JavaOne 2026. Martin is a software developer with about eight years at Netflix and about twenty years working with Java. At Netflix, Martin works on the JVM ecosystem team, which grew from the build tooling team and now also handles broader JVM work such as tuning, garbage collection, and upgrading. In his session at JavaOne Martin covered Java ahead of time compilation and Project Leyden, and he shared what Netflix has learned from experimenting with the technology. Just as many software developers, Martin found his way into engineering through this experience gaming as a kid. He built his first game in Java for the old Nokia phones as a school project. He has watched Java change a great deal over the years. The language keeps getting more comfortable and more approachable for young developers. His advice for students is to explore different options and find their own passion in the work. “With a little bit of work you can achieve some cool stuff,” he says. So, get out there and “discover your passion.” Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
May 26, 202614 min
Luiz Real at JavaOne 2026
Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Luiz Real, an engineer and college professor from the SouJava Community in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Luiz came to JavaOne 2026 for the first time this year to build relationships, catch up on the latest technical features in Java, and to mix with the Java Champions. He says building those connections is something you can only do in person at a conference like this. “JavaOne for me is a career changing thing,” he says.Luiz has been around Java for 18 years and working with it professionally for at least eight years. He’s a lead software developer at a large university and currently building digital management systems. The university runs more than 80 systems in Java. As he puts it, “Java in the enterprise world is, I think, the most reliable, the most used language.” Luiz is also a college professor, so he sees both sides of Java in industry and academic. His students are picking up Java because the jobs are there and they pay well. The hard part isn’t learning the language. It’s in the application. Students learn the fundamentals but sometimes struggle to apply them to real problems solutions. So Luiz brings real problem sets into class, works through them step by step, and explains what he’s doing as he goes.On AI, Luiz sees real opportunities for Java developers. “Even in the AI era, we can do a lot more with AI now with Java,” he says. “You see language is a tool. I’m telling my students that if they want to learn they should learn as many tools as they can. This is very good for them because it’s just one more thing that they can put in their resumes and one more thing that can help them to achieve what they want and to solve the problems that the market presents to us.”But there’s a catch he sees in his classroom regarding AI. Many students use AI to build things for them rather than to understand how those things work. So, he pushes students to ask the follow up questions about how the code they just built actually works. AI should be a tool for learning and extending their knowledge of Java development.Luiz says his biggest opportunity for his career was when he joined the Java community. Everyone is so passionate about the language, he says, and willing to share what they know. “SouJava is one of the biggest communities in the world,” Luiz says. The community hosts at least one in person meetup a month, sometimes two or three. “Every month we get more than 100 people in person, and hundreds more online.” When SouJava partners with other communities, the events grow to 200-400 people in person. Everyone is a volunteer, from the registration desk to the speakers themselves. Attendees feel the energy and want to stay involved. They want to become friends and step up as the next speakers. SouJava also runs international sessions in English, in person and streamed live. “Everyone is welcome in our community.” Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
May 18, 202619 min
Henri Tremblay at JavaOne 2026
Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Henri Tremblay at JavaOne 2026. Henri is a Java Champion, Montreal JUG leader, and EasyMock lead developer from Canada. Henri’s session at JavaOne covered the Java Memory Model, which is a topic he believes every Java developer should understand well. He’s been to six JavaOne’s and had warm words for the conference, which represents a rare opportunity to meet the people whose code runs on systems and devices all over the world. He has clear advice for developers: read books, understand how and why your code works, and get out there and join the community. Henri Tremblay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henritremblay/Jim Grisanzio on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/We also talked about why Java still powers so much of the world’s critical infrastructure, from banks to the Mars rover. Henri pointed out that companies often start in C++ and then move to Java because Java runs nearly as fast once it’s going and is far easier to change later.On AI, Henri had a balanced view. He uses it for tedious work, like sifting through a gigabyte of logs to find a single error. But he was also clear about the risks. “We should not get lazy at reviewing code because AI will generate tons and tons of code. It’s not bad at reviewing it, but still it makes mistakes.” He warned that AI reflects the average of what’s on GitHub, and most code on GitHub isn’t great. Your role, he said, is to find a better answer.For students and junior developers, he says they should also leverage AI for learning, but he advises that they internalize the fundamentals of software engineering deeply. “Read books, please, please!” He pointed to Core Java, the book he originally learned from and is now helping revise. Blogs and YouTube videos only tough on surface level issues. Books take you deep and that’s the knowledge you need to grow your career. Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
April 23, 202617 min
Bruno Borges at JavaOne 2026
Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Bruno Borges from Microsoft at JavaOne 2026. Bruno works on GitHub’s Core AI developer relations team. The conversation covers the future of Java in a world of AI, the value of learning core computer science fundamentals in school, the shifting role for software developers from just writing code to architecting higher level systems, the new business value opportunities for developers as they leverage AI technologies, and Bruno’s new AI-assisted website called Java Evolved that visually compares old and new Java code patterns.Jim Grisanzio https://x.com/jimgrisBruno Borges https://x.com/brunoborges Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
March 16, 202629 min
Bob Treacy: From the Factory Floor to Harvard and 30 Years of Java
Bob Treacy started his career as a union steward on the factory floor at GE Aircraft Engines. After earning a BS and MS in Computer Science from Boston University while also raising a family, he jumped into software, never looked back, and remains at the leading edge of Java and AI today. He picked up Java in the summer of 1995 at a training session in New York, and the language has been central to his work ever since. Today he is Principal Software Architect and Data Engineer at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science, and he has attended more than 20 JavaOne conferences, which is most of Java’s lifespan.Getting to all those JavaOne events has always been non-negotiable. “Every job I’ve ever gone to, one of the things I demand is that I be able to go to conferences like JavaOne.” The reason, he says, is simple: “It brings a lot of different perspectives, sharing experiences, learning from each other, and just a great group of people.”At JavaOne 2026 he’ll present work from Harvard’s Dataverse project, an open source platform for preserving and sharing research data. The problem he is solving is straightforward but persistent because researchers treat the repository like a simple archive and skip the metadata that makes their datasets discoverable. His solution uses LLM embeddings and a graph database to compare new dataset descriptions against existing ones and recommend subject categories automatically.The conversation goes well beyond his upcoming JavaOne session itself. Bob lived Java’s entire evolution from the rough early days of applets through HotSpot, modularity, and the modern work on GPU access via Project Babylon and the Foreign Function and Memory API. On AI, he says that “I think there has to be a human in the loop.” He sees LLMs as causal models, not reasoning systems. “Given these words that came before, what’s the next word going to be? That’s not really intelligence. I don’t totally buy some of the narratives that are out there about AGI.” His advice to students is equally grounded in simplicity. He advises students to learn the code, but spend more time understanding how large systems work together. As he puts it, “just doing pure coding” is no longer enough. Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
February 3, 202626 min
Paul Bakker: Go build it!
This is the third in a short series of speaker profiles for JavaOne 2026 in Redwood Shores, California, March 17-19. Get early bird pricing until February 9, and for a limited time, take advantage of a $100 discount by using this code at checkout: J12026IJN100. Register. Sessions.In this conversation, Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Paul Bakker, an engineer and Java architect in California. Paul is a staff software engineer in the Java Platform team at Netflix. He works on improving the Java stack and tooling used by all Netflix microservices and was one of the original authors of the DGS (GraphQL) Framework. He is also a Java Champion, he’s published two books about Java modularity, and he’s a speaker at conferences and Java User Groups.Java Is Everywhere at NetflixPaul will present “How Netflix Uses Java: 2026 Edition” at JavaOne in March. The session updates previous year’s talk because Java keeps evolving at Netflix. “Netflix is really staying on the latest and greatest with a lot of things,” Paul says. “We’re trying new things. And that means there’s always new stuff to learn every year.”Java powers both Netflix streaming and enterprise applications used internally and supporting studio teams. “Java is everywhere at Netflix,” Paul says. “All the backends, they are all Java powered.” Why Java? It comes down to history and practicality. The original team members were Java experts, but more importantly, “Java is also just the best choice for us,” he says. The language balances developer productivity and runtime performance. At Netflix’s scale with thousands of AWS instances running production services, runtime performance is critical.Netflix engineers stay closely connected with development at OpenJDK. They test new features early and work with preview releases or builds before official releases. When virtual threads appeared, Netflix engineers tested immediately to measure performance gains. Paul says they give feedback on what works, what doesn’t work, and what they would like to see different. This just demonstrates the value of being involved with OpenJDK, and Paul says they have a really nice back and forward with the Oracle engineering teams.The microservices architecture Netflix adopted years ago enabled the company to scale. This approach has become common now, but Netflix pioneered talking about it publicly. Breaking functionality into smaller pieces lets teams scale and develop services independently. Most workloads are stateless, which enables horizontal scaling. Production services for streaming often run several thousand AWS instances at a time.Early on with Java AppletsPaul’s coding journey started at 15 when he got his first computer and wanted to learn everything about it. Working at a computer shop repairing machines, the owner asked if he knew how to build websites. Paul said no but wanted to learn. He was curious about everything that involved computes. Java applets were hot back then. With nothing online available, he bought a book and started hacking away. “It was so much fun that I also decided right at that point basically like, oh, I’m going to be an engineer for the rest of my life,” he says.That’s clarity for a 15-year-old. And it’s remarkable. But Paul says it felt natural. He just started doing it, had such a good time, and knew that was what he wanted to do. When he started university around 2000, right during the dot-com bubble and crash, professors warned students not to expect to make money in engineering because the bubble had burst. Paul still remembers how funny that seems now. You can never predict the future.Initially, he learned Java and PHP simultaneously. Java powered client-side applications through applets while PHP ran server-side code. The roles have completely reversed now.Engaging the CommunityPaul attended his first JavaOne in 2006. “Those were really good times,” he says about the early conferences when everything felt big and JavaOne was the only place to learn about Java. Back then, around 20,000 people would travel to San Francisco every year. It was the one and only place to learn what was new in Java. All the major news would be released at JavaOne each year. The world has changed. Now information spreads instantly and continually online, but Paul misses something about those early days.The more recent JavaOne conferences offer something different but equally valuable. Paul points to last year’s event in Redwood City as a great example. While the conference is still big, it’s small enough that attendees can actually talk with the Oracle JDK engineers and have deeper conversations. The folks who work on the JDK and the Java language are all there giving presentations, but they’re also totally accessible for hallway chats. “That makes it really interesting,” Paul says. This direct access to the people building the platform distinguishes JavaOne from other conferences.Java User Groups also played an important role in Paul’s development. He lived in the Netherlands before moving to the Bay Area nine years ago. In the Netherlands, the NLJUG (Dutch Java User Group) organized two conferences a year, J-Spring and J-Fall. Paul would go to both every year. That was his place to learn in Europe. He has been continuing that pattern right up until now, which is why he is speaking at JavaOne again.Open Source software has also been another major aspect of community for Paul. He has always been active in Open Source because he says it’s a fun place to work with people from all over the world solving interesting problems. Besides being a critical part of his professional career, it was also his hobby. Paul says the Open Source aspect with the community behind it is maybe his biggest thing that he really enjoyed over the years.AI Throughout DevelopmentAI now occupies much of Paul’s professional focus. At Netflix, engineers use AI tools throughout the development lifecycle. Paul uses Claude Code daily, though other developers prefer Cursor, especially for Python and Node work. Most Java developers at Netflix work with Claude Code. The tools integrate with GitHub for pull request reviews, help find bugs, and assist with analyzing production problems by examining log files.Paul describes using AI as having a thinking partner to t all to and code with. Sometimes he needs to bounce ideas around, and the AI gives insights he might have missed or suggests additional issues to consider. For repetitive tasks like copying fields between objects, AI handles the grunt work efficiently. “That’s the nice thing about an AI,” Paul says. “While a person would probably get really annoyed with all this feedback all the time and like having to repeat the work over and over again, but an AI is like, fine, I’ll do it again.”Go Build a Lot of Stuff!When asked about advice for students, Paul’s answer comes quickly and has not changed much over the years. “I think what I really recommend is just go and build a lot of stuff,” he says. “The way to get to become a better developer is by doing a whole lot of development.”That’s timeless advice students can easily adopt no matter how the modern tools for learning have changed. Paul had to go to a bookstore and buy a book to learn programming. Students today have AI tools to help them and advanced IDEs. But the fundamental principle remains the same, which is to build interesting applications. Paul recommends that students come up with a fun problem and just build it. You learn by making mistakes. You build a system, reach the end, and realize the new codebase already struggles with maintainability. Then you ask what you could have done differently. Those real-life coding experiences teach you how to design code, architect code, and write better code.Paul also suggests that students use AI tools but not blindly. Do not just accept whatever an AI generates. Instead, try to understand what came out, how it could have been done differently, and experiment with different approaches. Use the tools available but really understand what is going on and what options you have.Some students and even practicing developers worry that advanced tools might eliminate their future role as developers. Paul says that nobody knows exactly how things will look in the future because tools get better almost every day now. But AI tools are just tools. Someone needs to drive them and come up with the ideas they should build. Plus, the tools at present are far from a state where you can hand them a task, never look at it again, and have everything work perfectly. Substantial hand-holding is involved.“Is our daily work going to change? Very likely,” Paul says. “That’s already happening.” But he tries to see this change as a positive thing. “It’s a new tool that we can use. It makes certain parts of our job more fun, more interesting. You can get more things done in some ways and be open to it.”Why Java WorksAt the end of the conversation, Paul answered a simple question — Why Java? What makes it great? — with a simple and direct answer: “Java is the perfect balance of developer productivity and runtime performance.”That balance matters where Paul works at Netflix. But it also matters for students learning their first language, for teams building enterprise applications, and for developers choosing tools that will sustain long careers. Paul’s career started with Java applets 20 years ago when he bought a book and started hacking away. The language and platform has evolved dramatically since then, moving from client-side applets to powering massive backend services that stream entertainment to millions globally via Netflix. Through all that change, the core appeal remains — you can build things efficiently for many platforms and those things run fast. Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
February 3, 202616 min
Jeanne Boyarsky: Get Ready for Java 25 Certification
Jeanne Boyarsky: Get Ready for Java 25 Certification | Duke’s Corner Java Podcast, January 21, 2026This is the first in a short series of speaker profiles for JavaOne 2026 in Redwood Shores, California, March 17-19. Get early bird pricing until February 9, and for a limited time, take advantage of a $50 discount by using this code at checkout: J12026DCP. Register. Sessions.In this conversation, Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Jeanne Boyarsky, a Java developer, an author, and a Java Champion based in New York City. Jeanne previews her JavaOne session, which will be a Hands on Lab for Java 25 certification. Previously, Jeanne was a guest on Duke’s Corner in January 2024: Jeanne Boyarsky on Java, Learning, and Contributing.Preparing for Java 25 CertificationJeanne will be running a hands-on lab about Java 25 and getting ready for the certification: Becoming One of the First Java 25 Certified Developers in the World (or Learning New Features). The session will cover features added to the language from Java 17 to Java 25. Although the certification has not been announced yet, Jeanne is already preparing for it. “You can be one of the first people in the world to be certified if you come to my talk and learn about it and are ready when the test comes out,” she says.The lab will walk through tricky questions and edge cases featuring new functionality, with coding practice to explore the features directly. Even if you are not planning to take the certification test, the lab provides a good way to learn about the new features. The session is designed for beginners with one to three years of experience.Top Features in Java 25Several features particularly excite Jeanne. She highlights scoped values, which she describes as “a good jump from thread local in order to be able to share code in a nice, safe, contained way.” She also appreciates unnamed variables and unnamed patterns because developers no longer need to use annotations to suppress warnings for unused variables. “You can just use an underscore,” she says.Jeanne is particularly interested in stream gatherers because streams are one of her favorite features in Java overall. She was excited when stream gatherers were in preview, and now that they are officially released, she can use them in her job. “Nice that the excitement hasn’t worn off, right?”Among the new features, Jeanne is especially interested in the new main method, as described in JEP 495: Simple Source Files and Instance Main Methods. “I’m super, super, super excited about the new main methods where you don’t need a class and you don’t need the whole static void mess,” she says. This change makes writing code more succinct.Making Java Accessible to StudentsThis change in how Java handles the main method enables new developers to learn Java faster. Jeanne volunteers at a high school teaching kids how to code in Java. In the past, teachers had to tell students: “Alright, public class foo, public static void. Don’t worry about what any of that means. We’ll tell you later.” But Jeanne says that curious kids would ask what it meant, and teachers could only say that comes later.Now, students start with void main, braces, and IO print line. “It’s obvious what everything does,” Jeanne says. Void means it does not return anything, which makes sense to students. They can even use the Java Playground and start with just IO print line. When they move to the command line or an IDE, they only need the void main part without discussing the word class until they are ready to learn about classes and objects.“It makes their first impression of the language so much better, and it makes it so much faster and easier for them to get started,” Jeanne says. She particularly appreciates the Java Playground because students do not need anything installed on their computers to start. They can write print lines, loops, and control structures, and by the time teachers ask them to install something, they are already invested in programming. “It’s fun.”Jeanne calls the Java Playground “awesome” and says it’s a “really nice utility” even for experienced developers. She uses it herself for quick tests when she does not want to open an IDE.JavaOne on Oracle’s CampusWhen asked about JavaOne, Jeanne describes the conference as moving to California last year, just outside San Francisco on Oracle’s campus. “The weather was great, which is awesome because I live in New York City. There’s snow outside right now,” she laughs.The venue particularly impressed her. “It was nice because it was on Oracle’s campus. You got a feel for it. It was pretty. There was a lake. There was a lot of areas to connect with people inside and outside.” The conference was held largely in one building, with lunch in another building nearby, which made it easy to engage people repeatedly. “Even if you don’t know people, the fact that they’re at JavaOne means they’re interested in Java. So, you can go over to anyone and introduce yourself.”One of Jeanne’s favorite memories from a previous JavaOne was meeting Duke and seeing her book in the Java bookstore.Advice for StudentsWhen asked for advice for students learning computer science, Jeanne recommends learning the fundamentals while using AI to help. “Rather than using AI to write the code, have it give you practice questions or do code review or ideas of projects,” she suggests.Students also often ask what professional developers do daily. Her answer provides a realistic picture of professional software development. “Every day is a little bit different, but most days include a mix of meetings, working with my coworkers, code reviews, writing code, now with AI,” she says. Problem solving takes many forms, from performance questions like “Why is this slow?” to security concerns about making systems more secure.A significant part of her role involves understanding what users actually need. “A lot of the time users ask for what they think they want and not what they actually want,” Jeanne says. Through user interviews, she works to understand what they are trying to accomplish, which often leads to better solutions than what they initially requested. “So not just building what you’re told is a huge thing, especially as you become more senior in your career,” she says. The goal is to make users productive and happy, not just to code.Technology keeps changing, and for Jeanne, that constant evolution makes the work fun. She has embraced AI tools as coding assistants, using them for pair programming, generating tests, and suggesting next steps. When her team piloted coding assistants, they focused on choosing a tool rather than waiting for the perfect tool. “The important thing is to get a tool and get people going and using it and being more productive,” she says. The learning curve is not high, and the tools pay for themselves almost immediately.However, Jeanne says that it’s important to understand what you are doing rather than using AI to replace that understanding. “It’s about understanding what you’re doing and not using the AI to replace it because at least with the coding assistance, it’s right 90, 95% of the time,” she says. She talked about an example of asking AI to generate a regular expression while pairing with a junior programmer. The AI started writing it properly but then made an error. “I noticed it right away because I know what correct is,” she says. After giving it another prompt with a hint, it produced the correct result. Without knowing what correct looks like, developers cannot effectively verify and fix AI-generated code.The AI Hype CycleRegarding concerns about AI making developers obsolete, Jeanne is pragmatic. “I’ve heard that enough times that I’m a little skeptical,” she says, adding that this is the third or fourth time some technology has been predicted to take all the jobs. Instead, she sees AI as enabling developers to accomplish more and make users happier. She has a big backlog “that goes on forever.” She says it would be great if we could get more of it done and in the hands of customers.“I think we’re at that phase in the hype cycle for AI where people are talking about AI like it solves all your problems, [but] it solves some of your problems. But because there’s less acknowledgement of the ones it doesn’t solve, it’s easier to have that skepticism.” When asked if AI represents a paradigm shift or just the latest tool, she responds: “Right now, I think it’s the latest tool, but I do think we’re going to get to the point where we’re programming at a higher level.” Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
January 29, 202631 min
Marit van Dijk and Anton Arhipov: 25 Years of IntelliJ IDEA
Marit van Dijk and Anton Arhipov: 25 Years of IntelliJ IDEA | Duke’s Corner Java Podcast | January 29, 2026This is the second in a short series of speaker profiles for JavaOne 2026 in Redwood Shores, California, March 17-19. Get early bird pricing until February 9, and for a limited time, take advantage of a $100 discount by using this code at checkout: J12026IJN100.JavaOne: Register | SessionsIn this conversation, Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with developer advocates Marit van Dijk and Anton Arhipov from JetBrains about the 25th anniversary of IntelliJ IDEA, the latest features of the IDE, Anton’s upcoming session at JavaOne in March, and their perspectives on JavaOne as the premier conference for Java developers.25 Years of IntelliJ IDEAJust as Java turned 30 this year, IntelliJ IDEA is now 25 years young! Not every technology survives that long, and even fewer thrive while doing it. But both Java and IntelliJ IDEA are doing just that. The secret to this longevity for IntelliJ IDEA, according to Marit van Dijk and Anton Arhipov, comes down to something simple but demanding — staying current with the Java ecosystem and engaging the massive Java development community around the world. The main reason for their success is the huge effort engineered into the platform to produce the technologies that developers need while at the same time staying with all the bleeding edge stuff happening inside the Java community.This commitment reaches beyond just supporting new Java versions. The IntelliJ IDEA team works on preview features even though specifications sometimes change during the preview process. When Oracle moved to a six-month release cycle for OpenJDK about eight years ago, IntelliJ adapted smoothly since their teams were already involved with the OpenJDK community. Marit says that new release cycle actually streamlined their work. They already knew about preview features and could start developing support upfront, not at the very last moment. This let them iterate alongside the community rather than chasing after it.The company also collaborates directly with other community members — such as framework developers, build tool teams at Maven and Gradle, and even Google — to implement best practices straight into the IDE. Maven 4 is not even released yet, but IntelliJ already has support ready with migration features to help developers make the transition. Anton says that this effort means that support is not only working with the new version of a technology but also being smart about how you use it. The IDE catches outdated patterns and deprecated APIs and also offers quick fixes to migrate code with a single keystroke.First and Lasting ImpressionsBoth Marit and Anton started working at JetBrains years after they had already become devoted IntelliJ users. Their first impressions of the IDE moved them deeply and remain with them today.For Anton, his first reaction to using IntelliJ IDEA was immediate. “In one word, wow, this is smart. This is an IDE that understands code.” That intelligence in the software became the foundation of his relationship with the technology.Marit had a similar experience when she switched to IntelliJ IDEA. She had used other IDEs before and they were perfectly fine, but IntelliJ seemed different. “I found that it was actively helpful with the code inspections and quick fixes and helping me when my code didn’t compile or preventing me from making mistakes. And I was sad that I didn’t switch earlier, like years earlier. And I’ve been raving about it ever since. And now they pay me to do that. So, you know, everybody wins.”AI and the Future of DevelopmentAs usual in these conversation, we turned to artificial intelligence and its growing role in software development. Anton will explore this topic in depth at his JavaOne session titled “Spec-Driven Development With AI Agents: From High-Level Requirements to Working Software.” Everyone knows that the AI landscape is changing fast, but things are actually getting simpler, Anton says. Developers can now get better results with less effort and less complex workflows using AI agents. Models are improving at guessing developer intent and reducing the need for careful constraint-heavy prompting.But Anton sets realistic expectations about AI. When asked whether his session targets junior or senior developers, he says that “we are all juniors in this regard.” The field is so new that nobody can claim years of expertise with AI development tools.Marit emphasizes another crucial principle about AI-generated code. “You are still responsible for the code,” whether you write it or an agent writes it. It has your name on it. AI does not diminish developer accountability or the need for developers to remain highly skilled in their craft.Anton adds another dimension about integrating AI with development tools. “AI without the IDE is kind of unreliable, but the IDE without AI is unproductive.” The key, he says, is to fuse these things together leveraging the benefits of both for better productivity. The context the IDE provides and its understanding of your project structure and dependencies makes AI suggestions more relevant and actionable.JavaOne: Where the Community Comes TogetherAnton will be presenting at JavaOne 2026 in March, and both he and Marit shared their perspectives on what makes the conference special.For Marit, JavaOne has always been unique. The “who’s who of Java” will be there, she says. Last year’s conference-ending “Meet the Architects” panel particularly stood out. The audience could ask Oracle Java architects basically everything about Java for over an hour. This kind of access to the core engineers building and shaping the future of the language is something you would not normally get at any other conference.Anton shares his view that JavaOne has always been the conference to get all the news about Java. He has always viewed the event as the place where you get condensed information about what’s going on with Java all in one place — the language, the platform, the standards, the frameworks, and the community.Community and Looking ForwardMarit and Anton maintain close relationships with the developer community through conferences and Java User Groups. Marit says that they have many JUGs in the Netherlands, and many of them invite her to come and speak at their meetups throughout the year. Also, when they travel somewhere for a conference, they look for opportunities to combine that trip with local JUGs to speak there and connect with people. This direct engagement with the open Java community lets Marit and Anton talk to developers directly, see how they can help them better, understand what developers are struggling with, and take that feedback back to the engineering teams. The same authenticity extends to how JetBrains approaches IntelliJ development. The engineering team maintains close relationships with framework developers and library maintainers and OpenJDK to ensure that when new versions release, IntelliJ users have good support from day one.As IntelliJ IDEA celebrates 25 years, the development continues. They keep releasing new features with every version: the Spring Debugger that helps developers understand their Spring projects at runtime, Command Completion that enables developers to perform commands without memorizing shortcuts, and more. The anniversary celebrations for the teams have included parties with cakes featuring old logos, a game plugin that lets developers play video games while AI generates their code, and social media campaigns engaging the global community. For developers curious about IntelliJ IDEA, Marit and Anton encourage people to subscribe to the JetBrains YouTube channel where they regularly produce videos explaining new features.This 25-year milestone represents more than just history. It represents an ongoing commitment to understand code, support developers, build the Java community, and evolve alongside the entire ecosystem. This pattern is pervasive among Java developers and also the many companies offering developers advanced tools. The smart IDE that so impressed Anton and Marit years ago continues to get smarter — right along with many other tools and technologies that are growing as a result of the Java platform itself.Anton Arhipov: X , BlueSky, LinkedinMarit van Dijk: Website, Linkedin, BlueSky, X Jim Grisanzio: X, LinkedinDuke’s Corner Java Podcast: LibsynOracle Java Developer Relations: Inside.java, Dev.Java, Learn.javaTopics Discussed: IntelliJ IDEA 25th Birthday, The Java Dukes, What’s new in IntelliJ IDEA 2025, Spring Debugger, Command Completion Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
December 16, 202558 min
Chris Hermansen: Don’t be Afraid to Create
Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Chris Hermansen, a Java developer, consultant, and data analyst from Canada. The conversation ranges from the innovative technical features in Java, developer creativity, career development, advice for students, and interesting ways to use Java data analysis in real world applications such as forestry.Duke’s Corner Java Podcasthttps://dukescorner.libsyn.com/siteJim Grisanzio, Host, Duke’s Cornerhttps://x.com/jimgris Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
December 2, 20251 hr 12 min
Barry Burd: Teaching Java as an Art Form
Conversation with Barry Burd, a computer science teacher, an author, and the co-leader for two Java User Groups (JUGs). Barry is based in New Jersey and he’s taught at the undergraduate level for decades. His journey with Java began in 2004 when he attended small user group meetings of just five or six people. Those gatherings, once part of the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey, have evolved into the Garden State Java User Group and the New York Java SIG, which now regularly feature Java Champions and prominent speakers from the Java development community. The transformation of the two JUGs on the East Coast of the U.S. reflects the broader growth of the entire Java ecosystem globally.What distinguishes Barry’s perspective is his view of computer science as an art form. He frequently compares elegant code to works of art. He asks students who question the practical value of certain technical concepts whether they would ask the same question in a course about the Mona Lisa. This artistic perspective extends to his appreciation of Java as well. He marvels at the language’s thoughtful design, where features fit together as a unified whole rather than random pieces of technology thrown together haphazardly.Java’s appeal for Barry grows from multiple sources. The language’s backward compatibility has been crucial for his work as an author and a teacher. He says that only one program broke across multiple editions of his books over the years. He contrasts this long term stability with other platforms that change frequently and force him to spend time fixing previously working code. The elegance and careful thought behind Java’s design resonates deeply with him. He appreciates the early decisions about inheritance and interfaces and the entire evolution of Java from the engineers under the stewardship of architects like Brian Goetz at Oracle.Barry says that the six-month release cycle introduced in recent years has injected new life into the Java ecosystem. He sees the platform as self-sustaining now with strong leadership that shows no signs of fading. Living near New York City, he says that financial institutions depend on Java’s industrial strength reliability for obvious reasons. The technology serves two audiences well, he says, those who need rock-solid, enterprise-grade systems and those like himself who appreciate the beauty of well-crafted software.When asked why Java is so great, Barry commented about the community but also added this bit: “I guess the other reason is that it’s good for industrial strength programming. People in the area of the world where I live in, close to New York City, in the financial district, rely on it. It’s just not breakable the way other platforms are.”If you ever have a chance to take a software development class from Barry Burd, take it. You’ll love it.Duke’s Corner Java Podcast Archives | Full TranscriptQuotes from the Barry Burd EpisodeOn Teaching and EnthusiasmContext: Barry discusses his approach to teaching and what drives him in the classroom. He emphasizes the importance of enthusiasm and helping students who are motivated by the subject matter itself, not just career prospects.Time Stamp: (00:31:42)Quote: “When I have a class full of people where they’re asking questions and most importantly, laughing at my jokes, I am thrilled. For me, it’s a party. It’s not a classroom. It’s a sort of a, let’s get together and have fun with this topic.”On the Love of ProgrammingContext: Barry describes his teaching philosophy and how he tries to convey his passion for computer science to his students, while also acknowledging that not everyone shares that passion.Time Stamp: (00:32:05)Quote: “I want them to understand that I love talking about this stuff and that if they share any of that love, I want them to participate in it.”On Computer Science as an Art FormContext: When asked why computer science matters and what he tells students about the field, Barry explains his perspective on programming as an artistic endeavor rather than purely practical skill.Time Stamp: (00:44:05)Quote: “For a lot of the courses, I treat it as an art form. There’s such a thing as elegant code and there’s such a thing as inelegant code. There’s such a thing as a beautiful algorithm and there’s such a thing as an algorithm that shouldn’t exist but does.”On the Beauty of Computer ScienceContext: Barry elaborates on why he teaches computer science, comparing it to art appreciation and explaining his personal motivation for working in the field.Time Stamp: (00:46:05)Quote: “When I think, why computer science? It’s because it’s artistic! It’s, oh yeah, I mean, it’s useful. And I certainly respect that. And I’m glad that people develop useful things for it. But my own interest in it is the beauty of it.”On Java’s Industrial StrengthContext: Barry discusses why Java has had such longevity and what makes it special compared to other languages, particularly its reliability for critical systems.Time Stamp: (00:55:59)Quote: “I guess the other reason is that it’s good for industrial strength programming. People in the area of the world where I live in, close to New York City, in the financial district, rely on it. It’s just not breakable the way other platforms are.”On Java’s Elegance and Thoughtful DesignContext: Barry explains what drew him to Java and what keeps him committed to the language, emphasizing the careful design philosophy behind it.Time Stamp: (00:53:03)Quote: “The other important part is it is so elegant. It is written, it is created, so thoughtfully.”Time Stamp: (00:53:42)Quote: “When Brian Getz and his team create new features, new classes, new parts of the Java ecosystem, they do it with the most careful thought possible.”Time Stamp: (00:54:05)Quote: “Overall, the platform is so well thought out. It’s such, for the purpose of teaching, it’s such a sensible way of exposing the underlying concepts of object-oriented programming and now more recently, data-driven, data-oriented programming.”On Languages That Lack Industrial StrengthContext: Barry contrasts Java’s thoughtful design with other languages that feel less carefully constructed.Time Stamp: (00:54:44)Quote: “There are other languages whose names I won’t mention that seem like they’re pieces of stuff thrown together willy-nilly, not at particularly industrial strength.”On Java as a Unified WholeContext: Barry describes his appreciation for how Java’s features work together coherently and how this aligns with his way of thinking.Time Stamp: (00:54:59)Quote: “Java is this unified whole. I appreciate ideas that I can think of as one thing.”Time Stamp: (00:55:42)Quote: “There’s so much of Java that was created thoughtfully that in my mind feels like one idea, one snapshot. And that’s what I like to teach. And that’s what I like to write about.”On the Six-Month Release CycleContext: Barry discusses what has helped Java remain vibrant and relevant over 30 years, particularly the introduction of more frequent releases in recent years.Time Stamp: (01:01:05)Quote: “The introduction of the six-month release cycle seems to have given an injection of life into the Java ecosystem that has really, really been good for it.”On Java’s Future SustainabilityContext: When asked whether Java can sustain its quality and community over time, Barry expresses confidence in the platform’s future.Time Stamp: (01:01:58)Quote: “It seems to be self-sustaining. The introduction of the six-month release cycle seems to have given an injection of life into the Java ecosystem that has really, really been good for it. The fact that the stewards, the people at the head of the story who are managing the overall platform are doing a tremendous job right now.”On Industrial Strength and Elegance TogetherContext: Barry reflects on what the Java community needs going forward, balancing practical reliability with aesthetic appeal.Time Stamp: (01:02:23)Quote: “We need code that works for the developers, and we need code that’s elegant for us dreamers like me, crazy people.”On Education Section at JavaOneContext: Barry recalls an important moment when he realized that Oracle was seriously interested in the education sector, which made him feel less like an imposter at Java conferences.Time Stamp: (00:21:32, 00:22:00)Quote: “That educator session at JavaOne in 2025 … that was the first time that I saw that … Oracle is getting hyped up about the education sector. That was great! That was a wonderful session.”On Java User Groups EvolutionContext: Barry describes the dramatic transformation of his local Java user group from informal learning sessions to a professional organization featuring top speakers.Time Stamp: (00:02:45)Quote: “We would, somebody in the group would find a topic to talk about, some platform, some piece of software, some Java thing, and they would kind of learn about it the week before and go in and talk about it. I gave some speeches like that, some presentations where I had no idea what I was talking about. I just learned it the week before.”Time Stamp: (00:03:35)Quote: “Suddenly we’ve gone from this group where it’s a bunch of people just spouting stuff that they learned last week to a first class Java User Group.”On Being Thrilled by HaskellContext: Barry recounts asking Brian Goetz what language he uses when “cheating on Java” and being delighted by the answer.Time Stamp: (00:51:40)Quote: “I was thrilled. His answer was Haskell. And I was just like, yeah, yes, man, yes. That’s a wonderful language.”On Backward CompatibilityContext: Barry explains why Java’s backward compatibility has been crucial for his work as an author, contrasting it with other platforms that break frequently.Time Stamp: (00:52:05)Quote: “I’ve written six editions of beginning programming with Java for Dummies, and I’ve written eight editions of Java for Dummies. And the entire time that I’ve written these books, there was exactly one program that broke from one edition to the other. Just one.”Time Stamp: (00:52:37)Quote: “I’m working right now with another platform and, you know, they change it every month. They break things. Oh my God, how am I going to deal with these? I spend half my time just fixing programs that were working two weeks ago. I hate that. Backward compatibility is really nice.”On First Encountering JavaContext: Barry recalls his first experience with Java when it was still in beta, reading the language specifications and being impressed by the design decisions around inheritance and interfaces.Time Stamp: (00:53:12)Quote: “The first time I encountered Java was Java was in beta and I downloaded the language specs. And I read it and I started off and it said it looked like C, C++ for a while. But then I read what they’re going to do with inheritance and what they’re going to do with interfaces. Wow, that is, as my colleague said years ago, that was like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes.”On Feature Development ProcessContext: Barry discusses how the Java team approaches adding new features to the language, emphasizing their methodical and thoughtful process.Time Stamp: (00:54:27)Quote: “In general, when they add a feature, it’s because they’ve spent a long, long time making sure that that feature fits nicely into the language, that that feature is usable, that that feature isn’t going to cause conflict and trouble with other parts of the language and cause trouble for other developers.”On Teaching Through VisualizationContext: Barry describes his teaching methodology and how he works to help students conceptualize programming concepts as complete mental pictures rather than just syntax.Time Stamp: (00:30:32)Quote: “My teaching method changes every single day. Every day I’m trying to think of a new way of drawing pictures within their minds. You know, a loop isn’t a bunch of letters, F-O-R, open parentheses, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s something that you can see. It’s something you can feel.”Time Stamp: (00:31:20)Quote: “This is the picture. This is what you should think of all at once when you think of the quicksort. It’s not a bunch of lines of code. It’s this idea, you know, watch those little pieces bubble from one part of the list to another.”Interview Archive Get full access to Jim Grisanzio at grisanzio.substack.com/subscribe
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