Foojay Podcast #35: Dublin JUG

Transcript

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[0:00] Hello and welcome to this new edition of the Foojay podcast let’s visit Ireland in our next stop of the Foojay Java User Group Virtual World Tour welcome to the Foojay podcast all your news about OpenJDK once a month in this podcast we talk about the history of a yava user group and the people behind it today we are traveling to Dublin to learn more about its yava community so I’m Barry aliser and I am from Dublin and I run the Dublin Java user group and I’m Frank I’m making this podcast out of personal interest in the Java community and to learn from other organizers how they are organizing their J and inviting people and speakers can you give me some history about the Dublin J I read that it’s one of the oldest ones correct well it’s it’s definitely established I don’t know whether I would say it was the oldest one it’s it’s the it’s the oldest one in Ireland that’s 100% sure on that one but we were we’ve been running the Dublin Java User Group since about 2007 I think it was and it was very strange how it came to be was a couple of friends of mine a guy called Luen o Caroll who’s savy passed

[1:25] Away and a guy called Jake corab who I believe is now he an Australian actually he an Aussie living in London these days I believe and they wanted to run a little conference over in Dublin and at the time I was running a few conferences around Microsoft Technologies and they knew this and they came and asked me if I would help them out so that’s how I got involved with the Dublin Java user group and from the user group point of view before the conference what we were doing is we were literally like just meeting up in a pop I think it was the parliament Hotel on Parliament street or somewhere one of these things and we’d you know there was very little Java talk actually a little bit but you know it was more of a community type of thing you know just to sort of you know press flesh and this type of thing and yeah so as I said that would have been around about 2007 I suppose really how we’ve evolved over that time Frank is we got some funding with well I suppose just before we go into the funding thing actually what was actually happening was we were getting

[2:46] More and more people coming along to it and it they were turning into a little bit of drinking sessions and which was a little it was fun but the hard developers you know the ones who really wanted to be there talk about technology kind of started saying to themselves it’s actually not really that valuable to us anymore it’s just we you know we don’t you know we don’t really want to be spending our time coming down to the pub just to talk about football or you know whatever and having drinks and stuff like this you know so we TR what we did what we decided to do was try and find a venue and you know try and pacify these guys who really just wanted to talk about technology and try and find a venue that was focused a little bit more about doing that but we needed money to do that so we went to AOL as it was then and a guy called Angus McLean gave us some money to basically you know rent out hotel room and buy some drinks and this thing so that’s how we really started to put down the foundation about learning experience for people you know and as I say that would have

[4:02] Probably been around about 2007 or 2008 I forget now it’s such a long time ago you know and less wrinkles then but it’s a bit fun that a very important aspect of a j is the socializing talking about anything but indeed it’s remarkable that you say the people really wanted to talk about technology and what’s happening in Java it was not just let’s have a drink it’s really let’s have a community event and focus on the technology aspect yeah and a drink well and a drink but that’s a second subject what I find also remarkable is that you yourself are not a Java developer you’re doing this why inheritance I guess really is because as I say Len Len sadly died Jake to London and you know I just kind of kept running with it you know my background is actually in recruiting I work for computer Futures part of the S3 group and I was kind of recruiting Java developers and I was recruiting Unix sis admin people cunix people you know this is going back to the kind of like the mid90s and at this Sage when Jake and Len came along to me I I’ve been out of the recruitment industry for

[5:26] Quite some time at you know that you know that time so but I always had that kind of like that periphery interest in the technology but I’m not a Java developer and you know sometimes like when you know the likes of git git was over here and Simon and people like that your colleagues when they came over they start chatting for five minutes and then I’m lost gone you know and it’s just the way it is but I do love organizing these things I love getting these really really cool people to come to Dublin and talk about you know the technology at the cace technology which can help people in their careers yeah and companies they work for help them you know solve problems as well within their businesses I talked earlier with the organizer of the utre ju in the Netherlands two of them and also for them they’re not Java developers they’re doing it indeed to get to know people find maybe new colleagues so that’s also part of your motivation to do this not really no to be quite honest with you I mean it’s you know the people I met meet you know new faces all the time nice people

[6:46] And you know you do build up you know friendships with them but I wouldn’t say that I actually spend a lot of time organizing these things for that particular reason you know I just feel that you know I mean Dublin Java user group has been going a long time it has a lot of credibility and it offers a lot of value to the local developer community and also to company likees you know companies like yours as systems to connect with people you know with what you’re doing as well you know so it’s really about that you know rather than you know there’s no real alter multi behind it m and I’m sure you’ll anyhow learn something about Java in the meantime I suppose the most fun thing I’ve had at a Java event was what was it sorry I have so many speakers in here sometimes I just can’t remember their names there was a guy over from I think he was from Belgium or maybe it was from Holland his name will come back to me in a minute and we ended up having a little trumpet session in the event at the beginning because he

[8:03] Was a he was a French horn player and I’m a Trumpeter so I managed to get a I brought a trumpet in and we did that for a little while you know not very well either of us actually that night but it was fun it’s fun I had a session when I was in utre h was there and he brought his guitar so you also have these speakers who mix the hobby just like I do with Raspberry Pi people bring in their pet projects into their presentation and then indeed you can up with music so that was your most remarkable session did you also had bad sessions that something went wrong or I would say there’s probably something but I you know most of the sessions are amazing and I really can’t pinpoint anything which was just Dreadful is a good point I was I knew you were gonna ask me that question and I was gonna use a joke as like yeah we had this guy called gett grunvald over recently Dreadful absolutely Dreadful but I can’t say that with any honesty you know he was great he was great it was great to have gett and I met gett in devox in London back in May time you know and

[9:21] You know I thought oh this is a guy that we definitely have to get over you know and it was a great session yeah I can’t I’m sure there probably is something which I’m kind of well actually now that you come to mention it wasn’t a bad session I’m not going to mention names here either by the way because that would be like suicide of course but there was I was it was when I was organizing an event and I was dealing with this person I’m I’m gonna I’m gonna tread really carefully here Frank very carefully and I found it to be very very very hard work dealing with this person to the point where they threatened me that unless I changed one character on our website which was their which was their Twitter handle they were going to pull out of the presentation honestly it was just like and if I told you I will tell you off the Record who it is but not publicly but when I tell you You’ be like going like wow you know as you may know we when we have when we have people come over spending their time to share their knowledge and everything like that we like to send

[10:49] Them away with something a little bit more than a t-shirt you know so we have a very very unique piece of art done for them and which is done by a local digital artist street artist actually he does a lot of murals in and around the city of Dublin but he also very very good in terms of digital art and I told him about the situation and he the piece of art that he created was fabulous it was like one of the you know the character who goes like was he on James Bond or something do you know that one I think I know what you mean yet yes and it was he did a thing so I’m sure he probably took that piece of art where it was like when like I don’t get that but yeah as you have to think so hard to find a bad session I think that’s indeed a common factor for the yava community that the people are so friendly now since I’m doing this podcast and talking to people at conferences everyone is so willing to share the knowledge and to talk about what they achieved or what they found as a problem and how they solved it and I think that’s one of the great

[12:06] Things about these speakers yeah I think I’d agree with you actually and you know I mean we’ve had people in from all over the world and we actually we don’t do too much in terms of local people I suppose really the reason for this is basically because do you know it cost it costs people an awful lot of money to go to a conference the nearest conference is devox it means they taking time off work it means them you know paying for hotels paying for flights you know a devox is an amazing comrad and I always always always recommend to people like like if you don’t go to one conference go to devox in London it’s the closest conference and it’s really really good but of course like you know when you start adding all those costs up you could be looking at a couple of thousand Euros for somebody to actually take that time out and go and do that and you know by the time you’ve added flights and accommodation and the ticket and everything so it’s a lot of money for people to find and you know if if if they can’t do that how can they learn you know in that kind of a

[13:20] You know like inperson environment and so it’s really about bringing the people who are actually talking at those conferences bringing them to Dublin so that the local community can connect in with them and actually learn from them and that’s kind of it so we do we actually do very very little in terms of local guys wanting to talk and we and it was highlighted very recently actually when we had vent cat over here and I’m kind of like sitting there and I’m like thinking yeah maybe we need to we need to up our game a little bit actually and start getting some of the local guys to do more presentations and get themselves into that kind of you know sphere of people who are going off you know to the conference and doing the talks themselves you know and we have grown one Java developer sorry Java Champion out of Ireland and that was rapael daero we gave him his first talks here and yeah he eventually became jav Java Champion so we do have a little bit of track record there but we should be doing more as well yeah I think that’s one of the

[14:31] Challenges of J is attracting new people because we found that like in Belgium it’s pretty difficult for people that they dare to stand up and say yeah I want to try this although that the audience of a j is very friendly they just come to learn and they’re not there to hammer on the speaker if the talk is not going as expected so it is a very friendly environment to learn to speak and to try out a new talk so yeah it’s definitely a great opportunity if people are interested to become a speaker if they can do that for instance at a dubling joke yeah do you know I always find the challenge though is in terms of aren’t we our own worst enemies when it comes to doing things like that you know kind of putting yourself up that pedestal and you know you think that’s like you we’re going to shoot you or something you know but you’re right I mean the community is very friendly and yeah I just wish people more people would take that you know that opportunity to use a small User Group as a you know a Launchpad into bigger and better things when it comes to doing talks

[15:42] Internationally and it’s an ideal place to do a try out for a new talk completely absolutely yeah yeah that’s gonna you know something that’s going to be my thing in 2024 try out I’m gonna I’m I’m gonna I’m GNA beat people up until until they come and do talks local people yeah great and then one day they will become Devo speakers or any other conference how big is the community in Dublin the Java Community well cing that’s a really hard question to answer we had about 4,000 people subscribed to our mailing list and we have a little we have a little team running as well in the back ground there Maria and her team and they’re constantly doing Outreach to people who are based in Ireland who are using Java in some shape or form but of course Ireland has has a lot of International companies in Dublin actually quite a lot of them in Dublin you know you’ve the big us multinationals and lots of different tech companies and everything you know AOL sorry not AOL what I can’t even think now what they’re called These Days actually changed Chang hand so many

[17:06] Times but you know I mean they employ MasterCard are here workday you know they’re all big Java users of course like you have Oracle here in Dublin as well there’s lots and lots of them but what happens then is that you get a lot of Jabba developers you know foreign Nationals will come into Dublin to work for these companies during covid we found that a lot of them left again you know because Dublin’s a very expensive place to live especially in the city center transport’s not amazing so you kind of you know if you’re working here as a developer you kind of have to live in the city center you could be paying two 3,000 EUR for an apartment per month or six or 700 EUR to rent a bedroom you know it’s it’s a lot so when Co came along and it wasn’t until after Co came along that we really really discovered the depth of this but when Co came along a lot of guys left okay because after all Frank why would you stay here in Dublin pay that amount of money when covid was dictating to companies you could work remotely they had no choice to say to people you can work

[18:24] Remotely you know it was the way it was going to be so we knew that people had left but what we didn’t really understand was how many people left and that only became apparent to us when we started our first event after Co and that would have been about beginning of 22 I think it was when we started our in-person events again and we started them with J Champions conference so what we did with that is we invited some of their Java Champions who were going to be doing talks for the J Champions comp to come to Dublin for four days and you know each night would’ have a different speaker and we were thinking this is going to be amazing you know this is groundbreaking stuff I don’t think anybody else had done it at the time it’s going to be amazing all our community of developers that we would have 50 between 50 and 100 people coming along to our events preco they’re going to love it they’re going to come here in their droves we’re GNA have a massive party and everything’s going to be amazing and do you know how many people came along to that first event it

[19:45] Doesn’t sound like a lot one one person and I was like like hey what’s going on here you know this is very strange so we kind of discovered then that actually a lot of these guys just they shipped out you know they checked out the country and off they went and during covid we never really did any in we never did any online events you know because we figured that like everybody else is doing it so we’ll just tell our members that this is happening in London or this is happening in Amsterdam or you know wherever it might have been and they can tune in there and everything so we didn’t really I think maybe did two we had Ben Evans we did one with Ben Evans and we did one with a we actually did a really really cool one actually with a again I just can’t think of her name off the top of my head but she work for Oracle in De developer relations in the US and it was really cool actually because she was a Grammy award-winning Jazz vocalist and jazz is a big thing for me as my trumpet is jazz I do jazz vocals myself and you know we got her

[21:05] We got her play in the ukulele live stream it was really really cool actually but anyway I digress going back to the thing we so we just so we said like well look you know we have this big mailing list of people we can’t just throw it away just because people have moved away so it was actually after Co that we started doing virtual events and it’s just basically we just do a hybrid live stream of the events that we’re actually hosting in person and that’s proved to be quite interesting quite good a good thing as well the little bit of a challenge there is about saying well we’ve also got a lot of local developers who could come in person who are choosing not to because it is live streamed so I got to think of a way of getting over that I got to try and make our events a little bit more like I must go type of events you know so you know but you look you can understand it as well I mean people are still working from home and then you know before it used to be oh look I’ll I’ll finish work at 5: I’ll go and have a little bite to eat or couple of beers with my colleagues and then I’ll go to the

[22:15] Dublin Java user group but of course now it’s more about you know I have to leave I have to get dressed they’re probably still in their pajamas from the morning from the night before I had get dress I have to get the training or the bus in or something like this you know it’s more hassle for people you know even though it might only be like 30 minutes away for them you know but we that out it’s a battle for all the JS I hear so restarting after covid indeed is getting the people who left from work and came to the J now get them out of their house to the J because they stay working from home a lot of them yeah you will answer my question about the impact of covid it was massive also for you are you back to normal a bit do you have how many visitors do you have or attend these the last few months have been really really good so we we’ve kind of like built our numbers up from that solitary number one person two years ago to you know having 20 30 people coming along to them but the last two or three events have been really really good because we had vat well obviously like

[23:28] Who wouldn’t want to come and see benai and meet vat in person so that was pretty much sold out and we had loads and loads of people in you know on the live stream as well git was over which was which is reasonably well attended quite a few people on the live stream again with that one and then our last event which was a couple of weeks ago I was very surprised about it actually Kevin deis from Red Hat we had him in that was only second in terms of numbers to VAP he’s not Java Champion but it seemed to me that people really really want to know about what he had to talk about which was to do with quarkus kubernetes performance and putting all those things together to make you know the Java your Java apps you know much faster online and everything you know and it was a really really good a good event yeah yeah people got a lot of value from it he’s an amazing speaker interes enough a lot of insurance companies at that event let me see which are the markets for have that lead for nothing what are your plans for next year so you already mentioned attract

[24:43] New speakers local speakers and about you have one per month during 2023 I think we ran 10 or 11 events actually our busiest ones were before Co we were I think one year we ran 22 in one year the ne so that would have been 2018 I think it was 2019 we ran 18 and then co last last year we ran 10 next year I think we our numbers will go up next year because well for two reasons number one we kick off in January with the J Champions conference getting a few of their speakers into Dublin at the end of January I’ve also got people knocking my door down to come and do talks here in Dublin at the moment from you know various companies ASO and yeah quite quite a few Red Hat want to come Red Hat are always wanting to come into to the Dublin Java us a group because of the community and everything you know because Red Hat have a big office here as well in Dublin but yeah just to try and you know maintain that level of you know top-notch people speakers who are usually going on the conference scene that’s really important to us as I say so that we can bring them them guys that

[26:20] We can bring the mountain to muhamed basically you know and then you know try and do a little bit more with the local Community try and get some of those guys just doing little lighting talks and things like this you know something not really related to Java I saw a message from you on LinkedIn I think it was about visiting conferences and you have a very nice rule H don’t don’t talk to anyone you know it’s a wasted opportunity to meet new people did you spot that did you I spotted that somewhere last week I think that’s that’s a very nice rule also for JS and conference is don’t speak to the people you already know yeah yeah well it’s strange actually because somebody told me that many years ago actually and I’ve always stuck with it that you know when you go to an event and actually it’s one of our sponsors is a guy called Jerry Nolan from stacken Co he’s a recruitment recruitment company that mainly does Java developers and he’s and I always saying to him is like Jerry don’t talk to anybody in my events that you already know it’s a wasted opportunity for you

[27:28] You know and he’s like not that one again you know but someone once told me that and it’s it’s always it’s always stood by me that you know we only have a finite amount of time in anything in our lives in anything we do so we have to maximize that opportunity and if you spend 20 minutes talking to somebody that you already know and it’s just like hey how are you doing and how’s the wife how’s the children how’s the have you been do you know I mean it’s it’s 20 minutes gone you’d be far better off speaking to somebody who you’ve never met before introducing yourself and opening up that conversation for a later time so he could be like hey let’s let’s have a zoom call let’s you know let’s have a phone call Let’s you know get in touch with me if you’re in Dublin you know this type of thing and I stood well it stood well with me in terms of bringing speakers into into into the Dublin Java User Group I think people that speakers that have been here tend to recommend us to other speakers which is a good thing because because we always make it a fun occasion and we always look after the

[28:47] Guys when they come here unless you fall out with me before the event one name you that you’re not I didn’t do anything with him oh sorry I’ve lost my thought train of thought now oh yes and just introduce yourself and just you know just let people know that you’re there and you’re open for having conversations you know doesn’t have to be about like I’m looking for something from you or anything like that it’s just hey you know okay that’s a very nice life lesson to end this podcast unless you have something more to I wanted With You Frank yeah we have a lot of time we can go on for hours I guess what’s another message you want to share or an ID you want to share with the listeners oh I I’ve said a lot today actually but I think if what I would say actually is if there’s anybody out there who is thinking about opening up a Java User Group in their area don’t no if you if you’re thinking about it do it just meetup.com get in there do it ring me up reach out to me if you need any help I’m I’m I’m I’m happy to share experience with

[30:17] You I think that goes for all the organizers if I have a j nearby visit it talk to the organizers learn what how they do it and I’m sure you will get it started yourself too yeah absolutely and oh I should what I should say as well actually is that as as well as as well as the Dublin Java user group we also run the what we call the West Midlands Java User Group which is actually based in Birmingham so it’s like the Birmingham Java user group and there’s a couple of other user groups in Ireland which is one up in Belfast one down in Cork and you know quite often what we do with speakers is we might do a little tour with them I tended to do something in Dublin something in Birmingham and then also speak to the guys in Manchester see if they’ve got a little slot or maybe there was a guy down in Bristol as well but I don’t know whether not that group still going or not it’s I’ve never never managed to get hold of him since Co actually we try and have a little you know try and organize a little tours for speakers when they come to this part of the world as well and it

[31:37] Makes sense really if you’re coming from you know Europe or the US and stuff like this you kind of want to maximize that right so yeah it just does that so yeah I think that’s about it yeah which is really great there was a fun session hoping to visit Ireland myself too one day as as an attendee of your Jer maybe as a speaker we’ll see about that you mentioned something actually it was we had Holly Commons in here and there was a there was Kevin deis turned up Tom CO’s turned up and somebody else I think showed up as well actually and it was just like completely random you know Tom Kohl’s happened to be in Dublin with his partner having a we weekend away or something I’m not sure that the partner was very happy that he suddenly disappeared to a Java user group meet up when he was supposed to be spending time with his family and everything but there you go yes yeah and of course that’s where I met Kevin and I said to Kevin it’s like when like if you know if you’re thinking about coming back to Dublin

[32:51] Anytime reach out to me and he did he stuck with it and he did and as I say we had him in here a couple of weeks ago indeed yeah I seen your calendar and in the past events I will also add them to the show notes that people can have a look at who were the speakers at your event and also in the next event so on the website on the website I will add if you look I mean there’s there’s years worth of abstracts and things like this and you know I’m sure there’s technology on there that’s just like don’t use that anymore you know but at the time it was cutting edge stuff you know but think very fast yeah yeah absolutely and we are as as I mentioned to you earlier Frank we we’ve been doing a lot of live streaming and course like the live stream we’ve recorded it and we’ve l a big back catalog actually waiting to get edited probably going to be a job over Christmas or something like this you know but there’s load of heaps and heaps of stuff that needs editing and putting online and everything you know I better do that before it becomes updated actually come to think of it you know

[33:58] But yeah there we go maybe this is a call out to a volunteer who wants to help you yeah yeah part of the Dublin Jer okay thanks a lot for this talk thanks a lot for being a guest of the of this podcast yeah and thank you very much Frank it’s been pleasure talking to you and to all the listeners I hope you had a great 2023 and I hope you have a fabulous holiday season and you go absolutely out of the park in 2024 great message thank you AR give me a f give me a j give me the friends of OpenJDK