Foojay Podcast #21: Brazil SouJava

Transcript

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[0:00] Hello and welcome to this new edition of the Foojay podcast today the virtual jock World Tour brings us to Brazil podcast all your news about OpenJDK once a month I virtually visit The Jug and talk to the people behind it sujava the Brazil jug was founded in 1999 and on Wikipedia I learned it’s recognized as the world’s largest Java user group with 40 000 members I’m sure there’s a lot we can learn from the people who achieve this my name is Maximilian I’m from Brazil Sao Paulo I work with Java since 2003 and I have been work with Java in a couple companies and I love this language and I made so Java in 2014 from to wrong since then I have been following both friends that I we got today and I love to help community on this way so that’s that’s I am hello everyone glad to be here with this amazing Brazilian friends my name is otari Santana I’m distinction engineer in company most of the time I do a lot of Open Source this includes with Java itself Jakarta e specifications and so on right now I decided to create my projects to help people to achieve the huge image of stage of software certification exploring the

[1:37] Open source words in the best practice around open source hey hello everyone hey Frank thanks a lot man for this interview he’ll pay ottavio hey Max and hello everyone is watching and listen to this I think that’s when we work together like we’re doing here right now and with communities especially on local user groups right that’s that’s a great way for you to improve your career Bridge or achieve the level that those guys here are achieving right because everyone here is started as you know participating on communities and sharing with other people and I think that’s what we’re going to discuss here right so how can you do this things for a career that’s what I do my name is Bruno Souza and I help you guys grow your career and become amazing developers okay thank you thanks for joining I’m Frank Laporte I’m a technical writer at Azul and I’m making these podcasts out of personal interest I’m very interested in what’s happening in the Java world and how everything evolved in this long history talking about long history so I already said so Java exists a long time already can you

[2:44] Tell a bit about the history maybe that’s for me right because I was there when it started right and so and I think that one interesting thing that you said Frank is about how great it is for us to be together right and the long history of the Java technology and I think that when Java started in 1995 right that became public for the first time one of the cool things that Java had was the whole notion of you know having the code available right and everything available being discussed on the main list and anyone could participate anyone anyone could download the source code and that sparkheads this whole notion that you know we shouldn’t just kind of join together right you know there’s there’s some other Technologies before that had user groups but I think that Java really started from the screen scratch right with the whole notion of communities together and so when we got together to build so Java in 1998 999 actually it was the culmination of an effort so Sun did an effort here in Brazil called the international internet associate program IAP and that brought together you

[3:57] Know about a hundred companies that’s that spent for a couple of years discussing job and how to apply job and everything and of course as you know this the group kind of it was the start of 100 people and then it reduced it to a small group of people that actually became very good friends and that was the group of people that said you know this can’t stop right you know we’re it’s so cool cool that we can that we can meet we can work together we can think about that we can discuss technology so how can we continue this afford right and that’s when this guy that was actually was the first president of sojaba and came with this idea of saying you know we should really shouldn’t do a user group right there’s other user groups and other Technologies and then we started you know the sojava the Java User Group the Java user Society right that’s what the name means and that when we started that and we had this interesting idea thing in the beginning because Sun said yeah we’re going to sponsor you guys right and so they gave us enough budget for us to

[5:05] To make a hundred hats right so with the Java logo and I mean it’s so Java local it’s not even the job the show Java logo and then we said yes we know we’re gonna do like we’re gonna get 100 people it’s gonna be amazing right and then we had 3 000 people just sign up in the first week right wow and so that’s so we never gave away that because we didn’t have enough money for it was really humbling to see how many people really wanted to discuss technology and really participate and that’s how we started several years later we decided to be incorporated right because there’s there’s things that you can only do in your entity like for example so job participate on the JCP the gel Community process and some other organizations and so in Brazil is a little expensive and complicated to be incorporated and so we decided to not do this alone right so we merged with four other user groups right so Java was a board a national group but at the same time have more presence in Sao Paulo and so we merged with a user group close by in Campinas and the Java competencies group

[6:19] And then I used to group in Rio that’s called the Java petropolis User Group and then a user group in the capital of Brazil Brasilia is called the Brazilian Java community and then a user group in Berlin right it’s like you know all the way to the north of the country called belgug right so we we’re more all those five groups merged together and that’s how we became like an incorporated you know the Brazilian Java user Society so actually sujava is an organization for the whole of Brazil but you have local organizations across the country correct yeah so because because we merge of those those groups right so many people ask us oh can we open a subsidiary on the cities we want user groups to be independent right but because those five user groups were merged together to become so Java that’s that’s how we became yes but we so job was always a national User Group because although we had physical meetings in Sao Paulo you know we started on the internet right we started with mailing lists and websites and things like that so it was always a

[7:33] National effort I also read my Portuguese is very bad I have that Sue Java is actually a little worst play and that’s it actually means I am Java correct yes so it is Society of users Java right that’s the official name but also so is I am in Portuguese right so Java also means I am Job yes okay I’m learning new languages at the same time of doing these podcasts you mentioned in the introduction that you all do also open source project that you’re involved in those can you mention a few of these projects that you are involved in maybe people will recognize you not as someone from The Jug but maybe from one of these projects okay I do a lot of Open Source I am at the eclipse foundations foundation with Jakarta profile I do some Apache products from Apache Foundation that I also helped on the open GGK ICU executive member of the jcg JCP since Java 8. that’s a long list our loneliest I know and do you think that working on this open source projects is anyhow related to what you do for the truck in one way or the other yes directly especially because a good friend who is here I

[9:05] Would say that you need to share or know to impact our career and move our career to next level if you write amazing code but nobody knows that will able to it’s like useless right our success is usually related to somebody else’s success I mean if you create an amazing tube like an open source product please make sure to share what you know to help those people with these Open Source Products I mean Lambda is useful because the Java developer knows how to use Lambda record is useful because the Java developers knows how to use record feature so it’s also happened with the open source award I mean both are Thai is impossible to get away of those integration we also can relate to that with the your career itself because inside the organization you need to sell your idea only to have the communication and combine both your technical skill with your communication skill if you don’t write code but nobody is able to understand what your ideas your thoughts your or your proposal something might be wrong I saw last week from another person who does a lot of open source and he said that good engineers

[10:33] Usually write very well on the both way writing code and write documentation I mean the code is one way to communicate between people machine and to achieve any kind of results when you do those things not alone right but you do together in a group it makes the whole effort so much more interesting and it grows so much more right so you know because otavio is participate on many open source projects you know he could just be doing this by himself but he brings a lot of this into the user group right so actually so Java it’s it’s it participates in a lot of initiatives so otavio has help has support from other people he works together with other people in the use in this group so actually he can do more right because each person kind of brings in and we have such a good example of that right when you know lots of people want to do their things on their own but what we try to do is that we bring things into the user group right because the user group grows the person grows the initiatives much it has much more impact and to reach a lot more people so when you see for example when Max comes

[11:44] Here and because I think Max is the youngest one in the group from the three of us here right so when Max came and does things for the user group right you know he grows a lot his career he has more visibility but the user group also grows right and so and that’s that’s how we do the JCP for example right just not just like it’s not Bruno or Octavio right you know we have we just had the participation of so Java in Singapore and so it was our representative that is in Europe right Rafael that travel to Singapore to be there right so because we do things together right because we do things in a group the whole group grows a lot more and the initiative is a lot stronger so that’s why I’d like to invite everyone here to do the same thing right so look inside instead of just trying oh I’m gonna do my YouTube channel I’m gonna do my presentation I’m gonna do you know just join your local user group right so you’re going to grow way more it’s going to be much much more visible today we’re going to grow a lot more right because that’s going to be a group initiative and other

[12:50] People are going to get involved right so Max for example right Max you know you when you start you my Max starts your part six pages oh let me help a little bit and today he runs a user group yeah yeah can you tell us more about that when I made those papers I got to start to be involved with because well I got to start to fill in my career on the time that oh I am I’m stuck I need to improve my career and the first thing that I thought was oh I need to find out a jug in order to realize what I’m missing on this these years we know that Java since seems to move it to Oracle to getting start to be open sources you just grow up to you know that everything he’s he’s running so fast and I gotta started to find out someone to help me and so Java helped me a lot with that and it was interesting because when I get started to help so Java we have I have been needed to organize an event and install Java called this so Java’s line talks and I asked help for to Bruno elders and other more eyes it’s another friend of us in nassaujao and it was very

[14:14] Interesting because they gave me a great opportunity to develop this kind of skill and it was a success for me it’s changed my life the way that I conduct my career it was a game change for me and so since there I realize oh God what I miss it to be joining that jog before why did I’m not I’m the youngest one on this on so Java I like to listen stories about that so I bring back to Bruno to guys an interesting thing Max that you know you start by participating on doing that the sojava lightning talks right so you organize the speakers you organize the events and one interesting thing that’s that we see a lot right when you’re trying to get involved with user groups and people just say I want to do this right I wanna you know I want to do this code in the project where I want to do this initiative right and a lot of times all you need to do is say guys I’m here I’m willing to help right you know raise your hands and say I’m willing to help in whatever you guys need right because because that’s what Max did so you know I’d like to

[15:32] Help right so how can I help and in the end he run the whole initiative right and so people into user groups they usually have lots of things to do right and they have lots of ideas or the things that they wanted done and so when someone that no one knows about so you for example listen to us here you want to party page and you tell I want to do this right so people like why right why you know who are you I don’t even know who you are right so how can you just want to do things and but if the other way around right if you just say look I’m here to help right you know whatever whatever you guys are trying to do I’m here to help then you join the group they’re doing things right and then once you join the group they’re doing things then your ideas the things that you want to do is going to be way more interesting and respected and because people see the value that you’re bringing to the group right so that’s what Max did right so he said I’m here I can help whatever you guys need right and then he started with a small thing right it was just it was just like a one-hour thing right Max

[16:37] With but he met several speakers he went on and got lots of people involved and then later on right then you can do more and more we service made the power of do something a small step every single day how far you can go if you do a single step every single day and the people who contributes or any kind of things like that it’s like Community like Open Source Products products and so on they usually have a huge impact in their career even with that still small people doing that if you take a look for example Java has more than Millions people who are coding Java who is a job developer however the number of contributions inside the JVM is to a field I mean less than one percent of the people who are using Java contribute directly to the JVM itself and it’s also happened with spring framework with Jakarta with microprofile and so on so this made the power of okay last year they spend 15 minutes read the documentation and tomorrow for 15 minutes and so on I mean after one month you are able to read the whole documentation of any kind of Open Source projects

[18:08] That’s you probably are using on production right now because the majority of the enterprising are using any kind of Open Source right and even that people usually don’t do that because they want you to do like four hours and get results right now but it’s not the way that happened the Korea is a long-term support like helping Community it impact is also a long-term sport that’s a marathon right you know career and user groups right it’s not not explained right so one thing that Frank said in the very beginning he said oh yeah so Java has been around for a long time and that is what I see in terms of the user groups right these groups there are there exists for a long time right you know they become more influential they become more important right they help more people and just because they’re there for a long time and now career is like this too right so the fact that you’re showing up that you were there for a long time makes all the difference right you mentioned open source projects stepping into an open source projects a lot of people think that’s a big thing

[19:21] But actually actually just proposing a change or an improvement in documentation for instance is already a step into open source development and that you join a project those are not that difficult to do and most projects have these issues good for a starter or good a good first issue some stuff like that so joining an open source project is indeed simpler than most people think and I assume that all the jugs worldwide would be happy with any volunteer showing up to help the organization or like you did Max with the lightning talks we had the same ID in Belgium but it’s pretty hard to find the initial first speakers the new people that want to join I think once we have a few of them then that will go more more fluently but I guess Max that was not that easy lightning talks or they always from new people or also experienced people doing short talk for instance what I did first of all Let me give me a bring overview about this history because it’s for a very interesting because I follow some people in Twitter you know Java developers and Trader one one of them is

[20:36] What Rodrigo graciano is a New York thing leader from materon he also is a Java champion and I saw he’s promoting aligning talking in his jug and I thought to myself oh why do you like to get started to speak on something like that and I talked to him and he told me oh Max so sorry we are focused on locally people in New York and for this time we are not able to just at your proposal and I told you myself why we don’t do this same thing in Brazil in sojava and in our job and I bring this idea and to Elder Elder is I mean here is something that we need we can talk more about that because it’s very interesting Community give bring us mentors and a lot of mentors in there I got a lot of growing ourselves out of that are my main turns as well and I bring this idea and the Elder said max if you want to do this let’s do this and the first thing that I need to care about is the speakers and I use the community to do that I try to find out people that wants to get started and I assumed that it was very hard to do this but well we need to get

[22:10] Consistency we need to keeping going believing yourself and I think it helped me a lot with that and we got the opportunity to fill the whole Grant the whole agenda or the event we was able to manipulate those things in a good way and well it wasn’t my first event and since then we did another Edition as well we I mean always to find out to help the community with this kind of movement it was amazing because I realized that there are more than developed software in a community you are you will grow up your career you grow up your technical skills but the soft skills is very important too and this is the way that I’m used to improve my career and I recommend it to anyone that is listening us right now to pay attention to this movement because sometimes we underestimate this kind of powerful that we can get from jugs and I think because so Java gave me opportunity to talk to you Frank to be joining us right here and I this is the concrete thing that we can make you believe in this movement so that’s it maybe that’s one of the one of the single things that we can thank kovit

[23:39] For is that we are got more connected than ever during covet there were a lot of virtual talks which would have never happened before I think so maybe that’s the only good thing that came out of it that people are really really more connected and online conferences are now also more accepted yeah I know that’s for sure right no problem you know the online words become way more interesting and more connecting I think that’s that’s great right the other side of that is that it reduced a lot the in-person meetings right and I think this is it is something a little bit more complicated because you know I love the online conferences and many times we are able to not only have the speakers but we also have we can also have a conversation but most of the time right the online things are done without much interaction with the allergens right so you know you have like a YouTube video You’re Just streaming things people just talking about the chats there’s last connection between people right and so when you do in-person things it’s a lot easier for people to you know for

[24:47] Each you having prompt to conversations you meet new people so one of the efforts that we’re doing actually me and otak are going to even travel to Europe pretty soon now one of the actions we’re trying to do is actually restart this movement of you know of user groups having in-person meetings and having in-person conversations right so it’s it’s it’s not sometimes not so easy right I think me and otavo are probably some of the world Globetrotters in that regard because we visit so many easy groups right Octavio and so we just did that last year here in Brazil where we visit about around 30 schools and several user groups along the way in universities where we’re actually going to actually meet people in different cities in different places we took a group that’s that travel about 10 days to several cities in the interior of the Sao Paulo stage right so that was a very interesting so job initiative and we’re going to do this again right now in Europe right we try to do in the US around Java one but it was a little complicated because

[26:02] It was still still hard use groups are still trying to return and now we’re gonna do in Europe to see if we can get that I think that the online part is very important right it brings more people reached out people that couldn’t come reach out to people in different places lots of people can’t actually you know move your in-person thing but at the same time one of the biggest strengths that user groups have is the face-to-face meetings is meeting people and seeing how things are going in your region in your city and finding people they can actually you know go have a beer with or go share a coffee in the middle of the afternoon somewhere near the office or something like this so This relationships right are also very important and we should not ignore them I think that’s that’s the strongest part of a joke that sometimes a talk at a joke becomes a group opportunity that you really have the presenter showing something but it’s so new that the presentation doesn’t go as expected and then you have people joining from the audience to help the speaker to fix the problem so that’s I

[27:13] Think are the best jokes when the speaker and the audience interact and that can only happen of course if you’re in the same room that’s true and if the audience is not that big what you mostly have in a jug I think that’s still a difference with the conference if you have a conference it’s in a very big room with a lot of people you don’t get into this interaction level that easily and there’s another thing that happens right is that you know when you’re there and you’re able to like have a coffee break and you’re talking to people then you join people to start new things right you know just start new initiatives you’re starting new conversations and then you know to discuss to actually that’s that’s how user groups start right so just like three four people they want to don’t want to just one thing so we join together right and so a lot of projects have started like this a lot of you know study groups and even a discussion around the JCP and around the specification of java a lot of things start like with just a small group of people having a conversation somewhere

[28:17] Right so you all have a long career in as a developer as a Java developer you mentioned Max that you had a mentor at some point what are the best ways to improve your career to grow as a developer I used to recommend to developers to look around the open source project that we used to work day by day because sometimes we use the tools we use the framework use those things but sometimes we Face some problems but we change it to another two and so on and instead of trying to solve that thing and I think that it’s a good way to find out to improve your career because you could improve your critical thinking and you could develop how can I solve this kind of problem because you are a solver problem you know right so in independent of the language independent of Technology we need to solve problems without solving problems anyone can hire us and the company we’re not interested in our career and we cannot improve our career and based on that I think that oh okay I got some problem and why not to show this one using my skills and based on that we can get started a kind

[29:40] Of study study path and it can help you to improve your career it’s a way that I used to do and sometimes I recommend to talking to the people to talk to your community talk to people that probably have facing the same problem like you and why you cannot do this another thing that I think that is expose yourself in your community as we have mentioned before it’s another way to improve your career and to show yourself to the community because if you know ones know what you know how can you how can you get the best position and it’s something that I learned a lot with Bruno and the otavio because without to do those things how can we find out people that are facing the same problems we cannot find out it’s a good way to do that and I used to get the difficulties turned on in Opportunities I think this is a good way to think of so if you find out a kind of difficulty or maybe a problem why not to transform this one any opportunity to learn things and sometimes we used to oh I cannot do this I will forgot it no no hold on maybe this time you are not able to

[31:03] Solve it but hold this one in the backlog probably in the future you will get it again so I used to follow this one and I’m a huge recommended to find out mentors mentors are the people that will help you to reach out the position in first faster than than before because when we are trying to find out the path okay you will find out by yourself but you take a long time to do this alone why not to find out maintenance I mean are you helping you oh what you want to do we want to do something let’s get a plane to do that so probably when we are talking to experience people you get the best plan to do to find out to reach out to your goals so I really recommend to find out experts in your jug trying to find out the best plan to reach out to your goals so this is the way that I’ve that I used to recommend to my friends in our community yeah having good Mentor is definitely important and I love your idea to look into open source projects how they are written you can learn a lot from architecture and how an open source project a popular project is not only written but also how

[32:28] It’s managed how topics are discussed or issues are handled within GitHub or whatever and see how a project like that is handled so you can learn a lot from that that’s absolutely true actually I I’m used to contribute with Jakarta musico this is a project that Ottawa is easily is a leader one I’m sure that I’m learning a lot because I can see how those things work like we can improve our communication skills because as you mentioned if you want to contribute to what open source we don’t need to do this only for code we can do that thing just giving and talking about this project or talking about this project I think this is a good way to find out good person good engineering people for example I from the project I’m able to talk to Elias noguero he’s another is another famous guy that got a lot of experience with Java development I used to talk to otara to teach me a lot I was able to talk to another people you know around the Jakarta Jakarta development and I think that when we find out open search open source is a way to do that I think you know okay it’s not at the

[33:54] End point it’s our way to do that those things to get that thing so I think that this is the way this is the way and sometimes we are just concerned about the end up of the journey but the journey is the principal thing that you need to focus on so the journey is more important than the destination something like that or something you can add there about what you learned during your career and what was most important to evolve is hard to say what’s more important the open source career especially because my entire career is based in the open source the communications here is one thing that we underestimate a lot as of engineer we really don’t care about the power of the fluency networking but the open source helped me to say and guide me to say hey you need to improve your communication as also the English I mean the biggest Open Source Products does not speak Java does not speak kotlin does not speak C plus plus c those amazing products speak are speaking English as well if you are able to speak English you’ll be automatically kind of out the circuit another point is the ability to

[35:20] Negotiate transcend the plans discussions the art around politicians in the technical perspective of course the most obvious things around called style co-design documentation tests architecture discovery scalability of decisions around open source but the point is to have a merge between the technical perspective in the communication Community excuse to guide your software your projects to go to their own unique Direction and especially to explore Partners tools to focus on the simplicity so open source help a lot of those and for me open source so far is the most mature softer development industry I mean you can see several products that is more than 25 years old or is able to a factoring if that change or change with enough documentation to keep people using it everything that I know comes from the open source especially the diversity of coding I was able to learn how the Google people code how Intel people called how red-headed people called Oracle people had codes and then I learned and then bring to me and combined us and make my style based on several big biggest tech industry in the

[36:57] Market I’ve been on your newsletter I read what if I told you that learning every new technology is one of the worst ways to grow your career what do you mean should we all stop learning no I don’t think stop learning right but I think that the drive for learn everything right it’s it’s what gets a lot of people stuck and not growing and not really going anywhere right because for you to grow you have to have a Focus right you have to go somewhere right otherwise you just kind of you just kind of going crazy and one interesting thing that’s that’s that’s because that that’s like a catchy phrase right don’t learn anything but one the most interesting thing I ever found is that the moment that you have a focus that’s when you can learn everything that you want right because you know if if you’re if you’re focused for example I just kind of give an example that lots of people are trying to do is that you want to work on another country for example right you’re going to work remotely and maybe work for another country or move to another country if that’s your goal right that’s that’s

[38:06] What you want to do and then you want to focus on I’m gonna I’m gonna focus on Java technology that’s you know and then there’s all kinds of things that you want to learn and you want to do it and you want and oh there’s AI now and I couldn’t I can do that oh there’s there’s machine learning and there’s Jakarta EE and then there’s all kinds of clouds and devops and oh and I need you I need to know all of that right but if you find a focus and you say okay so I want to work on another country and I want to solve a big problem right so no I don’t know I’m gonna work I want to solve big performance problems on high volume Finance applications right that could be you know you might that might be too specific and you think man but that’s so specific right I’m not going to be able to learn anything else I’m just going to focus on this one tiny thing but in reality now that you are you’re putting yourself in the market as an expert on you know solving performance problem High volume Finance applications then you can apply devops to this you can apply Cloud to this you can apply attrition

[39:16] Intelligence to this you cannot apply data science to this you can apply databases I mean everything that you learn you can apply to solve that problem and that will make you grow a lot that will make you know the visible person on that area you know big Banks and big Finance institutions from all over the world we want you to help them solve this very important very specific problem that they have right and so I think that’s the moment you know when people just try to learn everything they don’t get anywhere but the moment that you know where you’re gonna go then you can learn everything to get you to where you want right and I think that’s just for me Frank all those things are tools right you know the example that I give a lot is that you know my house here has a wood ceiling for example right you know if I have a probably my ceiling in my roof right and then a guy comes in and say hey Bruno I’m a carpenter I’m gonna fix your roof because I’m a specialist in hammers you know I don’t want to hire this guy right I don’t want his specialist in hammers to fix my roof right because

[40:27] What I want is I want a specialist in roofs right they use Hammers and use you know saws and you know and they have all kinds of different tools to come here and fix the problem that I have right and so that’s the thing that I think we always have to think right is what is the big problem that we want to solve right what is the thing because there’s nothing more powerful than you choosing the highest problem that you can solve right and be responsible for that you know it doesn’t matter how small that problem is but if it is the highest one that you can solve you can go after that one and then you can go after not bigger one in a bigger one in a bigger one right so then that’s that’s how you grow it’s one thing that I like to call Frank is what I call the spiral of growth right you know every time that you find an interesting problem right interesting project that you want to work on right that’s when you learn more you know because then you’re doing something real right you’re not just studying right not just learning you’re actually applying right because that’s a

[41:36] I think the biggest thing in that phrase that you quote Frank is the whole idea of learning you know learning is not what’s important right what’s important is the skills that you have right so you know when you ask what topic for example just has to talk about you know about about the biggest thing in his like open source right because I go and do things right you know when you participate in the user group you come here and you do things you go you organize a group you organize an event you do things and that’s that’s that gets you skills so it’s not just about learning it’s about applying so when you have a project then and you apply things that’s that’s when you really learn this that’s when you get skills right and so when you’re in a project you got more skills and you grow and so when you grow you can have salt you solve more problems and you get a more interesting project and so if you’re more interesting projects you can learn more things and you grow so that is what we think as the Spire of growth are you working on interesting projects you learn and

[42:40] You apply things you get improved with skills because you have better skills you can work on more interesting projects and then you grow but there’s there but I see lots of people that work on interesting projects and don’t grow I see lots of people that are learning new things and don’t grow there’s a missing link between those two right people need to see you as the person responsible to solve a problem right so if you don’t go and share either an open source project or on a presentation or blog post or a book whatever is that you want to do right or even just sharing to your friends if people don’t see you if you’re not visible on as the person that solves a problem then no one is interested in calling you for this Amazing Project right so here’s my is my part of growth that now you learn something right and then you share that and because people see you they invite you to amazing projects and because you’re applying those things an amazing projects you learn more things things and then because you learn more things you have more things to share and then more people see you in the high ending

[43:42] They invite you to more amazing things and then you and then you learn more and then you share and you learn and you grow so that’s how that’s the spiral of growth right so those three things together will really get you very very far in your career and again it’s not about learning for learning right it’s about learning you for purpose right learning that’s what we call deliberate practice right deliberate practice is practicing with a purpose right practicing with a focus so the moment you have your focus everything lines up together and it’s a lot easier for it to grow can we agree that a full stack developer is actually no longer possible there are so many Technologies nowadays that being a full stack meaning you do how to create a user interface you know how to do devops you know how to deploy services is that still possible nowadays that depends on what your focus right so for example if the problem that you solve is you help a Founder or you know like an expert to put their application in the market in two weeks so they can get Finance for the software man you

[44:55] Know can you do that can you be the person that listens to you know to a Founder that has a little bit of his own money and it maybe has like a like an angel investor in his family that he put a little bit of money on hands and then you can get that and you can implement the whole thing right you can implement the free the front end the back end the database you know the websites and you know the lead magnet you can do the whole thing two weeks and get this guy in front of investors so he can start his own company is that a problem to be solved man that’s a great problem to solve right so yeah you can totally be a full stack there right so again it depends on what is your focus what is the problem you’re trying to solve yeah I mean I guess it’s much easier to find a unicorn or Santa Claus then find a school stack engineer right since while I mean it’s impossible to just one person to hold the whole knowledge around I.T computer science and things like this I mean even in the 20 years ago I mean one person who knows everything around computer hardware software architecture I mean everybody

[46:03] Has your specialization it’s okay right now we are talking more around this shaped skill where you know broadly what happened in the it area and you’re able to go deep in one thing and be good on that thing one Bruno said the first thing that come out on my mind was the essentialist book that say the artist to focus on something is hard to say no to something else if you try to do a lot of things you probably you’re not good in everything so you’re gonna failure in every single step step right it’s like a musician I mean if I’ll set you learn music easier and every week I decided to play a different kind of music the musical instruments like the first week I go to guitar in the and then flow and then piano and then so on at the end of the year Anna was able to play anything very well but if I go to the music theory to understand what’s going on the music side and the focus only on piano after one year I’ll be able to be a good at least an average pianist right because I say no to guitar to violin to things like this it’s also happen with like I.T I mean we have a cup a thousand problem language

[47:34] We have over 400 database I mean we have several deploy strategies we have several DT details around kubernetes and so on how a single person is able to understand everything around it it’s impossible it’s a bit easier to see unicorns in the clouds that I said in the beginning yeah I think being an expert in a certain topic really adds a lot of value then to your career that’s absolutely true yeah the one thing that I have with that is that when people talk about being an expert right you know they talk about a technology or a tool right I want to be an expert on that and there’s there’s value to this right so just to get a Thomas example of the musician right so if you want to be like you know an awesome guitar player for example or you want to you want to play in an orchestra that you have to be amazing just one instrument yeah it’s it’s awesome that you be specialist on this on instrument right but maybe your dream is to teach music to kids right and then it’s more interesting that you know a little bit of lots of different things right so you can engage the kids you can engage you know the

[48:46] Families participating on things so it all depends on what is the problem that you want to solve so we are not especially some tools we are Specialists on problems right so I think that once you know the problem that you’re trying to find then you can really go after what you need to do what you need to learn to solve that particular problem and if you want to be a specialist in a tool for example I want to be the specialist in Java so go do the Java VM right so go build tools right because I do think there are specialists in hammers but they don’t fix my roof they actually are working on factories that build hammers for millions of people right and so I think that’s that we have to decide and I think that this is a very it’s even even the marketing right we have this problem because people when we talk about Niche and Niche is not a tool and Niche is a problem right so think about what problem you want to solve think about what problems you want to be responsible for and I think that’s it’s interesting for the user group for example right you know two of the

[49:55] Most active and larger user groups that we have here in Brazil is so Java and DF jug right so User Group in Brasilia and it’s very very interesting how those two groups Grill so Java focus on the professional developer and DF Jack focus on the beginner developer they wanted to learn right so it’s very interesting that our story is very parallel those two groups that work it together in lots and lots of initiatives throughout the years right and DF jug really became you know actually the founder of DF jug Danielle Jolly Vero passed it away a few years ago but you know but Danielle was adamant on helping people to learn job or try to be beginners right so he wrote books he created you know the whole User Group participate on that he created courses and you know I’ll focus on teaching jobs for beginners and so Java always focus on the professional people that were actually in the industry and solving problems and you know both groups were very very successful right and we’re solving different and problems and because of that we’re non-uh on you know focus on

[51:08] Different things so I think for the same thing for your career right so once you focus on a specific problem right you’re gonna be non for that and that is amazing it’s very nice that you go back to the Chuck because this podcast is started with Java what are the plans for us to Java for the future do you have new IDs did you really completely recover after covet are you back to normal what are the plans for the next months and the rest of 2023. so what do you think Max are we back to normal we are trying to get started coming to be the normal The New Normal because it’s a normal yes we cannot go back to the past we need to focus on the new thing so well we are trying to create a new Niche achieves to engage the community I think this is the biggest challenge that we got in the most of jobs it is to get more people involved on the community today I saw many people spread on the world because well we are an internet we are remotely working so it’s very hard to get everything together again I saw some movements down down here especially in this in Sao Paulo city I saw some some

[52:33] Groups trying to organize themselves to giving talks to giving me tops and so something like that I think that we are focused on this kind of movement we are renovate our website we are trying to organize more initiatives like for example today we got collar time meetings in our Discord server and trying to bring people to talking to any share knowledgement on there trying to engage those people in less than months I was able to create an open source project and holding under the soldier so Java jug trying to bring new people to getting started to contribute to open source using this kind of way that we just that I discovered and through those years to improve my career why not to do that and that’s so Java gave me a lot of support to do that and I think this is the way that we are trying to reach out our goals I think that is the most challenging thing that we need to face in on today we always want to do more things right and so one of the things that we want to do is actually be make it easier for people to come in with new ideas and participates and

[53:51] Get involved right I think that’s one of the biggest problems that we have with user groups is how hard it is for you to join in and participate right because you know lots of things are in people’s mind right so they have this idea what they’re going to do how things work and it’s it’s common that many user groups we don’t you know you don’t have like a page that says okay come here and help us with that right so a lot of ways for each of getting involved is just kind of be there right and you know Max animation Rodrigo Graziano for example and he has a an interesting story on how he got started user groups by you know he’s he kept saying I’m here to help I’m here to help I’m here to help and then one day the guy that was receiving people in the lobby was on vacation someone said yeah you know can you go down to the lobby and receive people there right so and then you can think about man I’m a developer right you know I can do so many things I can do so many things why I’m gonna go down to the lobby to receive people right and that’s how you get started right so no

[54:58] So the thing that I like to say is that you know if someone comes to your house you know and say oh yes you know I’m gonna stay here for a few days and no that’s good good to have you here and then you start saying you know what your house is a little dirty and the furniture’s in the wrong place right so how about let me move this sofa to this other place here I think this is going to be better and you know what you know you’re you’re using the room the wrong way I’m gonna switch your room with the kids room because I think it’s going to be better for everyone right so why are you gonna do it are you gonna kick this person out right you know you don’t want that person in your house telling you how to live right and that’s the same thing but if someone comes to your house and they say look I’m here to help right so what can I do can I go wash the dishes right you know that’s something everyone needs and it’s and no one likes to do anyway right so can I go wash the dishes and then you do that thing that no one wants to do right that works very well in

[55:55] Louisiana groups that works very well in open source right you go do the thing that no one wants to do and the more moment you start doing this people say man you can do more interesting things for us right so why are you washing the dishes there’s a there’s a machine that does that right you know maybe help me move the sofa right and then they will invite you to do the important things but if you want to do and you’re going to tell people what to do then you know you’re not going to make lots of friends right so and that’s I think that’s our challenge right now in terms of our next steps is how we can get people to participate more I think that the biggest problem that user groups all over the world are dealing with is getting people back into the in-person meetings right because as Max said it’s a new normal right so everything is streaming everything is online right so it’s a lot harder for the person to say oh man it’s just gonna be online anyway right why am I gonna have to get in my car and drive there and you know and meet people and all that right so I can just watch from home

[56:56] And that is a false how do I say this that’s that you know it’s it’s a false sense of I can just do it from home right because the reality is the things that you can do to improve your career you can’t do it from home right you have to go there and meet people right you have to be visible people have to see you right I think that the online Awards makes it less in less Force us last to go visit people in person and at the same time we don’t see how much we’re missing by not doing it right and so I think that that’s our responsibility as User Group Leaders as you know User Group managers and Community managers to not fall to this to pray to this idea oh yes it’s so much easier I can reach more people online so I don’t have to do it in person right I can just do it online so I think that we all it’s our responsibility so that’s our so job responsibility to go visit people to go meet meet them in person actually should go where they are right that’s why we did this 30 place that we visit that’s why me and otava gonna travel around Europe next month right because we gotta go to where

[58:16] People are right and probably this is the biggest challenge that so job is facing right now is how we do that how we can get more people going where theologist is so they’re willing to come and see us in person yes I guess challenge is a balance balance I mean okay you need to explore the power of the online it’s a powerful resource look at us right now people from Brazil Europe we’re able to connect easily however the human touch still matters I will say that my first mistake when I decide to go to computer engineering was a reason because I decided to go to university because I did not enjoy to have people conversation so I will do computer engineering because I will handle more with machine than a human and guess what that was my first mistake I have especially because I do software with people two people around people enjoying bad people there is no way to avoid people on that occupation okay I should choose another area but anyway let’s try to find a time of travel machine and stuff like that but the whole the point is the conference has a unique experience to go

[59:47] There to ask questions directly to make contact I mean I met Bruno salza because a conference I mean a good friend between us New Brunswick nobody saw the Sash and he said hey man you are so engaged with the community I should introduce you to a person who is amazing and it was Moon Souls and I just got that not only because okay at that time we don’t have we did not have like a huge amount of online but anyway I got that because I was there I got the opportunity and look the luck in majority way is when the opportunity finds one prepared person so be there is amazing place to go increase your network in NP hops your new boss your new colleague or your new partner might be in conference like that yeah I fully agree that’s what I learned from the previous podcast we had with Jax is it’s not about the talks that a joke it’s about meeting people and having a drink afterwards and talking to someone and discussing an ID or a problem and then finding people who join you to solve something okay we handled a lot we’ve learned again thank you all for your IDs and sharing your experience is there one thing you want

[1:01:16] To add each of you well I’d like to thank Igor de Souza because Igor de Sales was the bridge between me and Frank I think Igor is a special one that mentioned about me and mentioned about Frank and giving us an opportunity to talking together and I I’d like to thank you the most the Hulk the whole 4J TM and because I learned a lot with those things we have been looking how food Jack works and we think that it fits a lot with Joe Java blog and we saw Java website so we are trying to use the same formula because I believe that it’s fits a lot with Java developers around the world so we are focused on helping people that’s the reason why I’m moving to open source and it’s my purpose is to help developers and it’s not it’s not of course I like to work and make money but we got purpose more than one more than that okay so I’d like also a situential little story about my father-in-law my father-in-law he brings me a little question Max how can I open a YouTube channel and I ask in him why do you want to open an open YouTube channel and let’s see and he

[1:02:53] Said to me oh Max I’m a met for my former I used to learn and study a lot of things but everything is wrote on this notebook and when I pass away it will comes with me in my cemetery and I’d like to share this thing to the people if I help one lonely person it will makes me it will make my day and it’s changed my the way that I saw my career and it’s changed the way that I can help the people and that’s the reason why I’m focused on the community I focus on helping people I focus on the help the community and that’s the reason why I’m John John to the soul Java and I hope that this story inspires anyone around the world to pay attention to help the people to because it’s a it’s all about a people communities about people I’m right so that’s the thing that I believe I’m a developer Advocate at Zoop Innovation and I’m advocate for a special product called stack spot so if you want to learn more about that feel free to reach me out in my social media I think Frank will put those things in a podcast page so feel free to reach me out and I will be glad to talk

[1:04:20] More about JavaScript Community Job and my work as well so thanks again Frank thanks again with pleasure Octavio okay so thank you Frank it’s amazing to be here with more Brazilian friends I guess this entire podcast was my homesick that’s have been a while that I’d not go to Brazil I will be around in open source words mostly around Java and Cloud native so if you want to build the feature instead of waiting for join me in several Open Source Products around software engineering and right now I’m launching a new product the idea is to help soft engineer to reach the huge Miss stage of sophistication exploring the best practice of Open Source in your life so it’s an amazing idea to move your career to the next level if you know more so please follow me on Twitter LinkedIn and YouTube us otama Java so thanks Frank a lot for not only for this conversation here but for doing this with lots of user groups right I think that’s you know having many user groups being more visible and attracting people I think that’s such an important thing for all of our community I think that we are in

[1:05:41] A very important moment where Java is growing has lots of new features and new in involvement you know job is evolving a lot and I think that’s a very important moment for us to strength that community so thanks a lot for that thanks for Foojay right because you guys are doing exactly this work right of building the community reaching out to people making easy for people to start with Java and be interested in Java and I think that’s such an important thing I think that’s the Java Community is such a wide Community with so many different players and it’s it’s our it’s awesome to have a place where it can all meet as a community so that’s great and you know if you guys are listening here I’d like to give a little gift right so one of the things that we talk a lot about here about us was career and how to participate in open source how to do all that and the thing that I see that people struggle you know lots of developers tell me that yes I want to do this I want to I want to be I know I want to speak give a talk I want to participate in open source I want to learn new technology I want to do this

[1:06:47] And the thing that I see a lot is that we don’t know why we’re going to do this we don’t know the focus on how to do that so I wrote this a little book called the best developer here to help you have the best year of your developer career right so and it’s free right so I’m going to ask Frank to put a link on the podcast here so you can download that book and when you download the book two things gonna happen right you’re gonna get an email from me with the book right so you’re gonna have the book there for you the second thing is that you’re gonna get an email from me with the book so if you have any problems if you want to grow your career if you want to build a user group in your city if you want help from so Java just reply to that email and say hey Bern I need help and I’m going to help you do the next episode thanks a lot thanks Frank thanks for talking Thanks Max it was great to have you to be here with you guys thank you all three and the story about Foojay it’s actually Foojay is just a vehicle it’s there it’s the community who actually builds it the idea of this podcast was an ID by

[1:07:50] Girtian he said you should talk to the Chucks and tell about how they work how they where you can find them that’s what we’re doing but actually it’s the Java Community it’s all these amazing people who post their articles on there and who provide who build all these amazing content so thank you back to everyone of you for sharing your ideas here also for sharing your content on Foojay okay thanks for listening it was again a great session I definitely learned a lot I hope the same for you keep an eye on Foojay for future articles about development and everything related to Java World thanks give me the friends of OpenJDK