Developer Week is a four-day conference that takes place in Nuremberg, Germany. As the name implies, it is a developer conference where Java is a track among the other track topics. I spoke at the conference for the first time in 2017, and it feels like the Java track has increased in size since then even if it is still a small part of the conference. Anyway, it is very useful to be present at these non-100%-Java conferences as well. As Brian pointed out, they are coping with the same problems and challenges as the Java community. Talking about Brian, here we are as we are following Jonathan‘s presentation.

Jonathan brought his daughter with him on this trip, and she go the task of evaluating the various speakers’ presentation skills. It will be interesting to see how well I perform on stage in the eyes of a 14-year-old girl. Hopefully, my bribe in the form of some exclusive Jakarta EE swag will improve my evaluation.

My talk From Spring Boot 2 to Spring Boot 3 with Java 22 and Jakarta EE went well. I even demoed Jakarta Data at the end of the talk.

This was my first time attending and speaking at Spring I/O. The conference is located in Barcelona and attracts around 1200 attendees from all over the World. The two-day conference has four parallel tracks as well as two workshop tracks.

I had a great time presenting Why Spring Matters to Jakarta EE – and Vice Versa at Spring I/O. The crowd was engaging, and I had a lot of good conversations about the topic afterward. Even if I most likely was the only one wearing a Jakarta EE T-shirt at this Spring event, I didn’t feel alone at all. The Java community is the same anywhere, warm and welcoming.

No conference without a morning run, and Spring I/O was no exception. On day 2, Abdel, Ash, and I had a nice 7K run around Barcelona. A refreshing start of the day.

I’ll let you in on a little secret about how to increase your chances of getting accepted to speak at a conference. It is as simple as this: Submit Early!

Most conferences either accept talks on a rolling basis or have an expressed early-bird acceptance. Since most speakers tend to submit at a date near the CFP deadline, the amount of talks available to choose from is less for early-bird selections than for the regular selection after the CFP has ended. Which in turn increase YOUR chances at getting accepted if you are among those few submitting early.

The early-bird deadline for Open Community for Java is set to May 31, 2024. Submit your talk before that date to increase your chances of getting accepted. You can still submit more talks up until the final submission deadline of June 10, 2024.

JavaOne in Las Vegas is just a couple of weeks away. As it turns out, Jakarta EE will have a pretty good presence at the conference. My three Jakarta EE-themed sessions are:

• Jakarta EE BOF [BOF4038]
  Tuesday, October 18 at 18:45
• Jakarta EE 10: Simplicity for Modern and Lightweight Cloud Applications [LRN3693]
  Wednesday, October 19 at 15:45
• The Jakarta EE Panel [LRN3679]
  Thursday, October 20 at 14:30

Make sure to check out all the other Jakarta EE sessions listed in the session catalog. A lot of great topics by great speakers!

On Wednesday, October 19 between 10:00 and 12:00, I will be in the Hackergarten with the Eclipse Starter for Jakarta EE project. Please join me there to work on the https://start.jakarta.ee/. If you are unfamiliar with Open Source and/or the Eclipse Foundation, I will help you get started. This is an excellent way of kick-starting your career within open source.

If you are like me and enjoy a morning run before the conference, then you’re in good company. Please join us for the JavaOne Run (aka Duke’s Morning Run) on Wednesday, October 19 at 06:00. Chad will take us on a 4-mile (6.5km) morning run at a relaxed pace to the new Las Vegas sign and back on the North side of the Las Vegas strip. Check out the details of this, and all the other community activities in the JavaOne Update Series.

CodeMash is a conference I always enjoy very much coming back to, so I was extremely pleased when they decided to have a conference this year despite all that is going on. It really shows that it is possible to arrange in-person events in a safe way.

If I should describe CodeMash in one word, it would be Friendly. It is an extremely good vibe at the conference. It does, of course, help that it is held in the conference center of an indoor water park. The organizers are 100% transparent regarding the organization, budget, and everything else.

CodeMash offers a mentoring program for new speakers. When you get a talk is accepted, you get the question of whether you would consider mentoring a new speaker or be mentored by an experienced one. Since I consider myself pretty experienced as a speaker, I signed up as a mentor this year as well.

I think mentoring programs like this one is an excellent idea and would encourage anyone offered to participate in one to do so!

My talk, Jakarta EE 10 is Coming Your Way! was scheduled for the last day of the conference. Actually to the last time slot before the conference closing session. Usually, I prefer to be scheduled earlier in the program, but I guess that’s how every speaker feels. At CodeMash they have a closing session with a raffle, so there is another incentive for the attendees to stick around rather than beat the traffic on Friday afternoon.

To sum up, CodeMash was an excellent start to the 2022 conference year and I hope to be back next year! I also look forward to speaking at lots of conferences in the upcoming months and meeting up with community members in the conferences-within-the-conference happening at meals, parties, and hallways between and after sessions.