The second edition of the Jalapeño unconference was held in Cancun, Mexico September 13-14. The intention by having it this weekend was to get the Mexican Java community to be able to bring their family for the long weekend since September 15 is a holiday in Mexico. This didn’t really turn out as planned, so it was a fairly small group that gathered this year. Nevertheless, the sessions were of high quality and touched on a variety of interesting topics.

The sessions were located by, or in one of the pools at the resort. And since we were all staying at the same resord, the conversations continued after the formal sessions during meals and hanging out afterwards.

An unConference is a very social way to hang out with your peers in the community. In our case, the Java community. They usually have a mix of technical, non-technIcal and social topics for discussion. You never know what you get, but everything you get is the right thing. If you have attended an unConferece, you know what I am talking about. If you haven’t had the chance yet, check out the JUnconference Alliance and sign up for one today. They are organized throughout the year at multiple pretty awesome locations.

Community Over Code is a very community oriented conference, and the 2025 edition was no exception. It is by and for the ASF committers and projects. The usual greeting phrase is not “What is your name?” , “Where are you from?” ,or “Where do you work?”, but rather “What (Apache) project are you involved in?”.

The new logo for The Apache Software Foundation was launched in the opening keynote. The feather is now replaced by an oak leaf. You can read all about why an oak leaf was chosen in the blog post Introducing The ASF’s new Logo.

This was my third time speaking at Community Over Code. This year, my presentation The Past, Present, and Future of Enterprise Java with The ASF in the Middle gathered a pretty full room. The conference is not the biggest with its ~200 registered attendees (not all necessarily showing up each day), and with six parallel tracks, having 20 people in the room is fairly good.

The morning before the conference, we went for a morning run in a nearby park. This is a tradition at every Community Over Code. I also had the pleasure of meeting up with Kevin and Jared for dinner on Friday. Kevin also attended the entire conference day. His retirement hasn’t made him rusty as he was able to spot the mistake I did when I got a deployment error in one of my demos during my talk.

It’s been three years since last time I spoke at JavaZone, so it was very good to be back this year. The usual venue in downtown Oslo is under renovation, so the entire conference had relocated to Lillestrøm. It is just a 10 minute train ride north of Oslo, so that location is very convenient as well.

The upside of the new venue is that it has more capacity and feels a little more spacious. The rooms for the talks are bigger and more convenient without the steep lectern setup that the old venue had. Overall, I really liked the new location, and wouldn’t mind at all if it became the permanent solution.

My talk “The Past, Present, and Future of Enterprise Java” was scheduled for the morning on Thursday. Despite that this was the first slot on the day after the conference party on Wednesday evening quite a few showed up to see this walk through the history of Enterprise Java all the way up to what is in the pipeline for the next versions of Jakarta EE.

The factory that produce the JavaZone Viking Duke has burned down, so there were only a few left. I was lucky enough to get one before they ran out of them. Before the conference on Wednesday morning, I had a short run around the castle and parliament building in Oslo.

My second and last stop on the LAOUC Community Tour 2025 was São Paulo. This event, GUOB Tech Day 2025 was organised by the Brazilian Oracle User Group (GUOB) and about 300 attendees showed up.

I presented a talk titled The Past, Present, and Future of Enterprise Java as one of the last slots of the day for a small but very enthusiastic group. In this talk, I go back to the early days of J2EE and take us through the history up until modern day Jakarta EE. The talk also include demos for Jakarta Data and the virtual threads support in Jakarta EE 11.

The visit to São Paulo was a fairly short one this time, but I got to experience the Brazilian hospitality and great food. Tomorrow, I may even squeeze in a run in the park before my flight home.

This is the second time I am participating in the LAOUC Community Tour. My first stop was Buenos Aires and the event organized by the Argentinian Oracle User Group. Due to the heavy rain in Buenos Aires this Wednesday, the number of attendees were a quite a bit lower than the 180 registered.

In my talk titled Jakarta EE Core Profile and Helidon – Sped, Simplicity, and AI Integration, I gave an overview of the history of enterprise java, presented what’s new in Jakarta EE 11, and some indications for what is in the pipeline for Jakarta EE 12. The demo part of the presentation was about Helidon, which is a compatible implementation of Jakarta EE 10 Core Profile. I demoed how easy it is to get started with, how fast it is, and the brand new support for AI integration that was added in the latest version.

The Oracle User Groups is not my regular crowd, and it is nice to meet new faces. The speakers met for an informal gathering at a local pizzeria where we had their specialty called Fugazza. I would not dare to call it pizza in case any Italians are listening. It is more like cheese fondue with onions on a thin bread.

The official speaker dinner after the event was at a tradition Argentinian parilla where we tasted a lot of different kinds of meat prepared in the Argentinian way. And, of course, every meal started with empanadas. These come in different shapes and are ubiquitous in Argentina.

After all this food, I am glad I managed a short run in a nearby park the day after the conference.

I tried to figure out how many editions of JCrete I have attended. Let’s just say that it’s been quite a few, and I enjoy is just as much every time I return.

The community at JCrete is just incredible, the food is awesome. The only thing to wish for is that time wouldn’t go so fast. From the informal gathering on Sunday night, the four days just blow past you in an incredible flow of impressions and good moments. The week is over before you know it. I usually take a couple of days off and stay at Crete a couple of days after the conference. This year, I stayed a full week at the wonderful beaches of the island.

If you ever have the opportunity to join a Java unconference, you should definitely take the opportunity. It is the best way to have technical conversations to industry experts and community leaders in an informal setting. Everyone and noone is a speaker at an unconference.