This was my fourth time speaking at ConFoo in Montreal. It is a great conference, and you can deduct from the smooth operation that it has been organized before. In fact, this was the 22nd edition of ConFoo! Quite an accomplishment!

I had two talks this year. The first one titled Prepare for Jakarta EE gives an extensive overview of what is to be expected from Jakarta EE 11. It also includes a demo of Jakarta Data.

The second talk I did was my Spring Boot 2 to Spring Boot 3 with Java 21 and Jakarta EE talk. I am not sure how many times I have done this talk now, but it continues to be relevant and honestly a very fun talk to do.

After the conference, a group of speakers, volunteers, and organizers went to a Sugar Shack outside Montreal. A Sugar Shack is a cabin where sap from maple trees is boiled into maple syrup. If you are finding yourself in this part of the world, it is absolutely worth a visit. You get to see how maple syrup is produced, and of course, taste it.

After lunch where the condiment for everything was Maple Syrup, we went outside to see how the syrup is made. A popular treat is when they pour hot maple Syrup into the snow and let it could down so you can pick it up on a stick and eat it like a popsicle.

I had a great time speaking at the Philly JUG Yesterday! The topic of my talk was the implications of the namespace change from javax.* to jakarta.* in Jakarta EE 9 when migrating from Spring Boot 2 to Spring Boot 3. The slides are available on SpeakerDeck.

Before the event, I had the opportunity to explore Philadelphia. It is an interesting city to visit with a lot of American history. For those of us who grew up in the 80s, a selfie with the statue of Rocky is a must. It is kind of funny to see that it is just as popular with the younger generation as well. Groups of teenagers blast Eye of the Tiger from their phones while running up the iconic “Rocky steps” and taking pictures of the statue even if they weren’t even born when the movie came out..

I also checked out the Liberty Bell, which you could argue is a bit more historically significant than a move about a boxer, but who am I to say? For lunch, I had a Philly Cheesesteak. So simple, but still so good…

Jfokus is an excellent conference, and the 2024 edition was no different from the previous ones. I have had the pleasure of being a fairly regular speaker there, and since they try to rotate the speakers a little I didn’t really expect to speak there this year. However, due to a last-minute opening, I got to present my Prepare for Jakarta EE – Performance and Developer Productivity talk.

I had almost a full room, and lots of great follow-up questions and comments after the talk. A note to myself is that beanies are more popular than socks in Stockholm when “bribing” the audience for questions. Even so, all the socks were gone in seconds when I left them up for grabs on the stage while packing my laptop and presentation clicker.

Due to the short heads-up for my acceptance and the fact that I already had made other plans for the remainder of the week, I had to leave the conference after the first day. One day at Jfokus is way better than none, so I am very satisfied with the trip.

I decided to take the train from Seattle to Portland as it is the most convenient way of going between those cities unless you have a car. I’ve been told that this train usually is very reliable and punctual. This time, however, there was a mechanical issue with the train so they had to switch train sets in Seattle. Which in turn resulted in a two-hour delay…

The Portland Java User Group event was scheduled to start at 5:30 pm and the train was originally scheduled to arrive in Portland at 3:35 pm. Long story short, I arrived at the venue at 6:00 pm to start my talk. The participants could enjoy 30 minutes of pizza and drinks while waiting, so I guess it all turned out great at the end.

I did the From Spring Boot 2 to Spring Boot 3 with Java 21 and Jakarta EE presentation here as well. With great discussions during and following the presentation.

The Portland JUG had also ordered the JCP 25-Year Anniversary Swag Kit, so there were lots of goodies for the attendees. I recommend all Java User Groups do the same. Just follow the instructions on the JCP 25-year Anniversary page.

The January JUG tour continues to the Pacific Northwest. Yesterday, I visited the Seattle JUG and presented From Spring Boot 2 to Spring Boot 3 with Java 21 and Jakarta EE for 30 attendees at the Microsoft Reactor in Redmond. It was a very engaging group with lots of questions and great discussions following the presentation.

Even with free pizza and drinks, getting 30 people to show up at a JUG event is very good for most JUGs. For Seattle JUG, this has only happened before with Venkat or Josh as speakers. After the event, a group of us went for burgers and fries at a local restaurant. All in all a very successful evening!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Nashville Java User Group. The JUG was rebooted last year and now features monthly meetups. So far, every speaker has been a Java Champion and there is pizza and drinks at every event.

My talk about migrating from Spring Boot 2 to Spring Boot 3 focuses on how to deal with the namespace change from javax.* to jakarta.* is still popular. More and more attendees have migrated, but still appreciate the tips and tricks provided.

One thing the Nashville JUG does at every meetup, which I am going to shamelessly copy to Javaforum Malmö, is Job Talk. Job Talk is a couple of minutes before the presentation dedicated to those looking for jobs, or are recruiting for jobs. An excellent opportunity to connect.