Duke's Corner

Duke’s Corner is a forum for conversations with Java developers. Tune in to connect with the community and learn how developers are innovating with Java around the world. Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations @jimgris

Bruno Souza: My Greatest Pride is the Community 08/31/2025

Bruno Souza: My Greatest Pride is the Community Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Bruno Souza, who is a Java Champion, leader of the SouJava User Group in Brazil, and a member of the JCP Executive Committee. Bruno received the first Java Community Lifetime Achievement recognition in October 2022 at JavaOne in Las Vegas. "I was totally surprised! I was jumping up and down! I was so honored! It’s an honor to be a member of that group." he said. Bruno Souza is known as the "JavaMan" from Brazil and that nickname started back at Sun when Java was announced and Bruno started evangelizing the technology. Bruno's message to the community was "Open Standards and Open Source" as he began his community building efforts around Java. He continually brought to Brazil FOSS and Standards experts for community discussions, and he advocated for a standards-based Open Source implementation of Java that would pass the TCK. Bruno left Sun and then returned, and he also joined the JCP (Java Community Process). Now all these years later we have OpenJDK, and open JCP, and hundreds of independent JUGs that can participate in community building and also Java development. "Maybe my greatest pride, I think, is the idea of the Java User Groups community," Bruno says. "We have OpenJDK for development and the JCP for standards, but for me the real Java community is the Java User Groups! These are all volunteers who meet and help others participate and learn." Bruno in recent years has been talking a lot about building reputation and career by embracing the open-source lifestyle — writing code in Java, contributing to Open Source, and helping build the community itself. Since our work lives in public mailing lists and open-source code repositories, we earn credibility by being visible, contributing, engaging the community, and helping others get involve as well, Bruno says. Bruno advises that career is a long-term project: "The more you work on it, the more you grow, the more results you have. So, the sooner you start the better. This is not a sprint! This takes time." Getting back to Java itself, Bruno, like most Java developers, prefers the 6-month release cadence over the older system of multi-year development and release cycles. There is a constant flow of technology now which allows for more interactions between the Oracle engineers and engineers in the community. "Everything you see today in Java is possible because of the 6-month release process. I just loved it when the guys did that! I think it's amazing! The fact that we now have two releases per year changed Java. I think we’re positioning Java to be even stronger in the years to come. I’m very excited about the whole thing," Bruno says. Throughout this conversation Bruno provides a wonderful history of Java since he’s been involved from the very beginning! "People don’t remember that Java was a community from the very beginning!" Bruno says. “We were able to look at the source code from the very beginning and that allowed us to build the community from the very beginning with lots of other companies joining." And then the JCP was created to allow Sun and the community to discuss the standardization of Java. And then OpenJDK was a huge step because now Java would be everywhere with Oracle leading and building the community. "Java is more participative today under Oracle than during the Sun times." "Java + Open Source + Community: That’s what grows our career. That's what grows Java too!" — Bruno Souza Bruno Souza Duke's Corner Java Podcast Jim Grisanzio /episode/index/show/oraclegroundbreakers/id/38035080

Trisha Gee: It’s all about Relationships and People 08/18/2025

Trisha Gee: It’s all about Relationships and People Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Trisha Gee, an author, a Java Champion, and a Developer Advocate at Gradle. In February 2025 at Jfokus in Stockholm Trisha received the Java Community Lifetime Achievement honor from Sharat Chander from Oracle Java Developer Relations. Trisha has been a Java developer for 25 years, and since 2011 she’s been actively blogging, presenting technical sessions at conferences, and evangelizing Java globally. Recently, Trisha has moved from a traditional developer advocate role to more of a facilitator of developer advocacy internally at her company as well as externally. She works with engineering teams, marketing, teams, and sales teams to ensure the voice of the developer resonates throughout the organization and the community. Trisha is always evolving, she’s constantly growing. In this conversation we talk about the JVM, the six month Java release cycle, writing code, the unique features that make Java special as a technology and as a community, Generative AI, design patterns, understanding requirements, asking questions, problem solving, edge cases, documentation, testing, open source, standards, advice for students, and teaching her 9-year old how to code in Java. Trisha is fascinated with the entire development life cycle of software projects and especially the skills developers need now for working with AI. “It feels like a very personal thing from him … he’s such a huge powerhouse in the community. Obviously, he cares about the technology, but he understands that the technology isn’t enough. It is about individuals stepping up but not just doing stuff for themselves but doing stuff to enable other people, to empower other people. It’s the community that makes it a great place to be, and Shar is such a huge champion of that. He makes you feel really appreciated for making the effort to help others and to be involved in the community.” — Trisha Gee commenting about receiving the Java Community Lifetime Achievement recognition from Sharat Chander at Oracle. Trisha Gee Duke's Corner Java Podcast Jim Grisanzio /episode/index/show/oraclegroundbreakers/id/37861140