Foojay Podcast #39: Java Dominicano

Transcript

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[0:00] Hello and welcome to this new edition of the Foojay podcast today I’m crossing the Atlantic Ocean for my Foojay yava user group Virtual World Tour to visit the Dominican jck welcome to the f j 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 the Dominican Republic to learn more about the country and its Java Community Hello friends of JDK I’m Brian Munos from Dominican Republic Java user group I’m just a John Depp from the Dominican Republic working with Java and I’m here to share with you what are we doing at the Dominican Republic jav group hello everyone my name is UD cabera from Dominican Republic Java user group and the co-founder and thank you Frank for having us at FJ podcast and I’m Frank Lor creator of this podcast technical writer at aul and interested in everything which is happening within the Java world before we dive into the ju and what you’re doing with Java and with the community what should we know about the Dominican Republic the Dominican

[1:19] Republic is a small country in the Caribbean it’s well known for this his amazing beaches also for the hospitality of our people and we are well known also because we are the foreign country with the most baseball players in the Major League Baseball that is played in the US we also have a lot of players in Europe baseball leagues so that’s how many peoples know the Dominican Republic but from the yuk perspective we also want to know or that people know it’s the Dominican Republic because of the great Java community that we are evolving and racing here yeah about that Java community so you have your chck can you share a bit about the history of it how long does it exist how did it start our first session was in 2014 February 2014 yeah you were already involved in 2014 or you came became part of the team later in the case of Eis he is one of the co-founders along with Carlos kamacho he is not with us today because some other obligations but in my case I became like an active member in 2021 when I was a volunteer for our J our local conference that we organized as a Juke you said you’re a small country

[2:50] How many members do you have in your J we have a different channels for communication in the you in telegram the most art te channel we have a over 200 and how many people join this the sessions well in our sessions we have like monthly talks sessions often and there are around 20 25 peoples regularly but we are also doing like joint sessions with other Latin American Java user groups and when we are doing these joint sessions with them there are obviously more people that join the pulks or the recordings because there are people from the other countries now you say 2025 that’s what I see at a lot of JS even in big cities or big countries so it’s really have finding the right people at the right time for the right topic and as someone mentioned before it’s not about the number of people who show up but the right people and being interested in the topic is it always also the case at your J that the social part is at least as important as as the topic of the evening yes sure the social part is almost most important than the topic of the talk because people wants to know

[4:17] Each other wants to interact with each other and so on you know you’re an island so do you fly in speakers or are they most local people yeah yeah most of our speaker are local speakers most of the time when we have international speaker is remotely presented yeah so remotely presenting isn’t is a possibility I think with Co that was also one of the solutions or didn’t you have a impact of that yes with the co impact on the Y we started like doing this spirital meetings along with other Jes from the Caribbean right Elders we have started collaborating with other jokes from the caribbian or Latin American and I if I correctly remember we started doing something that was like Java in quarantine times because we were all in quarantine so we started like doing some those kind of meetings with that name or with that format and after that the same meetings just were renam it into something that we are calling JD key fundamental talks so friends of JDK we are doing Latin American JDK fundamental talks along with other views from Colombia hello to Carlos oron that is a

[5:49] Java champion from Peru Jose Diaz another Java champion and some other you from Latin America yeah Ecuador Nicaragua guaa Mexico yeah about mon about 10 10 Java user group of Latin American we have a joint s yeah I see on your Twitter that you’re mainly communicating in Spanish yes is that deliberately is that really a strong point for you that you can share content in Spanish do you attract other people you think than than English websites yes we almost do everything in Spanish because it’s our country primary language but also we are like not bring a blocker if there are some speakers that want to chare with us in English because in this you know technical part of the job we all need to at least learn or read in English and I cannot say all of our attendance or partic participants of the yuk know English but they can’t understand the language or what are you saying in this technical stuff is your community is it mixed is it like in most it sectors most male or do you also have a strong female community in our case we are almost 90% of male mhm but we always try to

[7:32] Include wom or just to try to make them feel they are inclusive in our joke doing some sessions just for wom in the 2021 or 2022 JC we did like a talk or a joint session between some girls I cannot remember the name of the session but there were like three girls talking about their experience with Java and with technology and also for students I don’t know the education in your country but do students really get trained in Java and are they also interested in joining the J and learning from these speakers looking back at 20 2014 looking back 201 2014 most of the school they were teaching programming language like f BR Vis basic dery and a lot of a lot of students want to learn Java and frequently people ask for help hey how can I start learning Java and that’s one of the reason to create the Java User Group yeah right now most of the most of the school and University are teaching Java but they’re teaching Java at Java 7 Java 6 but we are trying to work with him or with them to bring the news enement of the language you know which is actually yeah

[9:25] It’s a bit fun story I was at the University here in Belgium some time ago to speak about Java and they were also not focusing on the latest versions of java they just want to have that the students understand the basics of good object-oriented programming and they were a bit surprised as a teacher how Java has evolved in the last years so they were really surprised Lum do and streams and the new Switch cases and Records all these kind of things that you learn at a ju that was something they were not really aware of also in education I think indeed that’s a good point that A J can really influence the education and learn them new things too do you have some kind of cooperation with these universities yes in our case just to talk about my case also is ’s case we are alumni from the same career here in the Dominican Republic and we started both with Java different Generations obviously but we started both with Java at the University my first touch with Java was at the University it is the University that also is partner of our Java User Group most of our meetings if they are present

[10:50] Like in person meetings are at the campus of this University and they always have been with us Al also one of our co-founders the other one Carlos kamacho is like he is one of the leaders of this computer science career at the University so he’s always trying to force Java along with this University curriculum ourc levels yeah I see you have a very big side project with your J is actually a conference can you talk a bit about why you started organizing this around the 2018 a lot of a lot of je from Latin America want to do a want to organize a series of conference to bring a speaker from Europe and in Us in the USA and we want and in and we join into the organization and that’s that’s that’s the way that we create J Domin J Dominicana in the same year in 2000 in 2019 there was JC in Colombia and Peru and the Dominican Republic Java Luminati li like J L M heckley Heather ranura and Sebastian dashin travel in the for Latino America to attend to J series of conference f fact some of the speaker were presented into Spanish for

[12:48] Example M hecky Sebastian Dash yeah they speak hisan very well yeah so it was really a conference across different countries so all the same week or one after the other something like conf in different countries the first in Dominican Republic the next week in Colombia the next week in Peru yeah so the speakers could really do a tour through all the yes yeah yes they came they can also make it a very nice journey I guess yes it was a dream contr true for the first Java Luminati presenting in your country we are very excited M we already follow speaker like just Lan I know B and Colombia too yeah it was awesome it was awesome yes we were very excited with that conference yes but you started it somewhere just before Co so I guess that was also blocker at some point due to the co pandemic the jcom 2020 was cancelled yeah so we were in the earliest the early stage of the organization but was caner but you quickly recovered I see because 2022 2122 you immediately restarted the conference yes those two editions were B and we went back in

[14:31] Person this year 2023 mhm and how was it this year you had again this high level speakers or the world two speakers or did you look into more local people in this year edition we had some people also nice ja minaries but most from the Spanish speakers we have someone from Mexico there is called churos his name is Enrique but everyone in the Java Community know H at Cho we have Francisco from Nicaragua right we have also Jorge there is from colia right no Guatemala from Guatemala we had really nice speakers foreign speakers but we also had lot of good the speakers from our country I think the names are still online the schedules and the speakers of the last session so I will add the link to the show notes if people want to check all these speakers I also found your name Brian related to the Java Community process program Awards apparently you won an achievement related to education yes there is an initiative that is being managed by the JCP the Java Community process related to javing education we were talking about that before in this podcast but there is an initiative lead by the JCP

[16:10] That you can go to jcp.n dasing education and you can look what it’s about and because of some contributions that we have been made mostly from myself but you know that is like a Juke effort is not just my effort and we have been contributing to this initiative led by JCP leading some workshops locally related to this new javing education stuff also some talks and some different kind of things that was like the main point that we are nominated on that Duke Awards yeah congrats so is that also education in high school or also younger kids yes it’s also in younger kids one of the other Ys or person that are nominated under that category are devot for kids that is from Europe also so it’s not just for J deps at the University level the one of the purpose of the initiative is that we made Java the first generation or for or the first language for each educational level it doesn’t matter that is the University or just young devs that are starting from scratch like knowing what is a computer they can start with Java and we know or maybe one of the people that are watching this podcast doesn’t

[17:53] Know but Java is making a lot of great and new changes related to improve the experience of the new developers and the teachers also so they can feel more comfortable in that way of teaching Java and also learning Java yeah I have to be honest I also have a code Dojo so club for kids and I’m not using Java there maybe but I see yeah for younger kids we start with scratch and then we have a Minecraft team which are doing things in JavaScript actually I should start a Java team there yes there are some different options like it not just Java but as you mention we have scratch we have aist that is something build to T teach Java for young peoples it’s a really good project I believe from carnegy M University but yes we have lot of good research es for teaching Java to Young persons and also for people that wants to learn by themselves there are a lot of good resources are there so if you can or if you want you can put that link also on the podcast the jc.org jaing education yeah we definitely do and you’re right with we have the JEP 445 which was in Java 21 as a preview feature with a simplified

[19:26] Main method and that’s yes Al the name it classes now you do need to declare a class name and the instance main methods as you mentioned you don’t need the usual public static void main just write in void Main and you can to start withing some Java programs and I believe that in newer versions there will also reduce the ceremony with reading a system. out print so it will also became easier for Learning and for teaching yeah we should all push Java a bit more into education and in the direction of beginners yes if you go back to the J do you have a specific session in mind which was either amazing or went totally wrong I hope not too much of yes in the years as I said before we have remotely we have speaker presenting remotely but most of the time Carlos and I were the speaker the most remarkable session was the Fair edition of jcon Dominicana as I said before again you have Java luminar presented in your country just long M hey hether it was a dream come trueu yes yes and something that went wrong yes I remember one Oracle Caribbean is located in Puerto Rico yeah yeah it’s about one

[21:18] Hour from Republic someone from Oro Caribbean was working at Santo Domingo and I was contact I was contact by by him to organize a session in our youth yes it was the first and the first in foring speaker and we have high expectation with that session but about two hour before the session a start raining a lot a heavy rain due to Heavy Rain just five people attend to a session is yeah was yeah it was awful yes we have hyper with session but we can meet the speaker expectation yeah but it’s out of your hands it’s not it was not your fault if the weather is messing up yes what is your personal motivation to be part of the ju organization team Klo and I used to meet frequently we talk about anything Sport and politics and including Java and software development and every conversation end with the following stem there isn’t a place there wasn’t a place when where Java developer can me to share knowledge and that’s our main motivation we strongly believe we can we can work together we can collaborate and learn from each other and to make a

[23:19] Difference yes and for you Brian in my case is about giving back to the Java Community like what Java has given to me it’s I’m just I jum de I know that I have lot of steps to run ahead of my career but it’s about that it’s giving back to the community what Jaa has given to me it’s about multiplying the knowledge I know that I’m not maybe an expert at anything but I can contribute with what I know to those people who maybe doesn’t know what I know or who doesn’t know anything at all and they just want to start their career or they just want to move from another career to YT it doesn’t need to be Java but it’s about that and a more directly answer could be that why are I involved is because of Carlos was my teacher the other founder of the joke and he was the one that asked hey do you want to join our Java user group and I started learning about what is a Java User Group how we can like give back to the community what we know about Java and how we can run a community that is not maybe an easy task did he give you extra points because you were joining the jer no that was just of the end of my

[24:52] Career because he was also my thesis advisor so there were not points at any you know it’s something yeah it’s something as a mentor that you invite join you mentioned to grow your career what are the career opportunities in Dominican Republic what kind of java companies do you have there most of the company er use Java Bank the government right now I’m I’m working from the for the Domino Republic Ministry of Finance all all the finance operation r on the jbm our application are developed and maintained by ourself by our team and we have again deep understanding of java and Jakarta e we have a telecom company Bank Java is news in a lot of company here Bob does a lot of a lot of vacancy open vacancy company always are looking for Java developer we try to teach TOA because there are a lot of open open job yes as udri says there are a lot of companies in our country offering Java jobs because they use Java in their organizations in the ’s case he say he’s part of the Ministry of Finance of the Dominican Republic so if you need like a

[26:45] Reason to learn Java the all the finance operations of your country in our case Dominican Republic runs above the jbm so it’s like a good reason or a good option just to learn Java and there also a lot of companies here in the Dominican Republic that are doing like Outsourcing developers so we have lot of companies here using Java but there are also another companies that are bringing our talent our local developers to companies abroad our country so with this we stuff nowadays There’s No Limit indeed that’s the one can thank Co for that working remotely has become a normal thing yes yes and as you say Java is ruling the world so it’s in a lot of companies and a lot of governments and yeah what are the plans for the future we are nearly at the start of 2024 now actually we are broadcasting this recording we are recording this halfway in December but we will publish it at start of January so what brings 2024 one of the main plans for our future as a Java user group is increasing our visibility we know that we are maybe in a good place but doing once as a plan of our the you the organizers we as the

[28:19] Staff of the you we want to in increase our visibility also we have the Comm commitment about educating the Next Generation in Java and that’s why we have been close to the JCP the Jobing education initiative as you have mentioned before and also continue mentoring the new speakers I believe that was one of the main reasons that I’m part of the UK as I say Carlos was my teacher my thesis advisor so it was like a good advice from him that in my case I can join the Java user group and I found mentoring with e Carlos and all the other people in our joke so that’s part of our plans and also bringing more nonlocal speakers to our usual monthly talks or to our conference that will taking place in July in 2024 so if you are making plans to visit any conference in 2024 we will have our conference in July 2024 if you are watching this podcast also and you are a Java speaker and you want to visit the Caribbean and the Dominican Republic Java user group we can put you in our monthly talks virtually but we also have our impers conference as we have talked in the podcast before is there already a call for paper

[29:58] For the conference in 2024 the call for paper is not ready yet but maybe when this recording became available the call for paper will be also available if it is I will also add a link to the show notes that people can find it easily how can people find you join you I see you have a very big GitHub project also which Java Dominica I see that even your conference website is there with gbank so using Java to generate a website I love it yeah yeah what is the perfect way to I don’t think you use Meetup is there another way that people can register for the J we use S right we can follow on Twitter X and also we have a channel in telegram where we can because the hard topics in is the most R channel of the community and also we have in Facebook we have a group when you can join and right now we are working in our website to consolidate all the channel and all the contents of the community before we finish up is it something you want to ask to the listeners or to the viewers of this podcast you already invited them to the conference that’s one thing as speaker

[31:28] Yes that was I was going to say what is it stopping you from coming to talking our Java User Group to share your experience it doesn’t need to be like an expert topic about like virtual dress or anything you can share your experience with Java why you suggest young people to learn Java and I don’t have like anything else Adis do you want to ask something to the speakers thank you to FR and at the same time congratulations for the work that you’re doing and with FJ Po and P is a good platform to learn about Java it was am missing platform yes and now you have articles the podcast and a lot of content and is awesome so let me turn back the question and towards the Dominican Community if you’re listening the podcast and you have great Java content that you already created or you still want to write it you can also publish it on Foojay so let’s make it two-way collaboration Foojay is there for the Java community so anyone who wants to share content on Foojay is very welcome and you on Foojay the homepage you can find the links to contribute your first article and join

[33:01] The slack so indeed it’s a it’s Foojay is just part of the community the same community that you are participating in with the Dominican J so thanks a lot for joining this podcast thanks a lot for your time and for your great work that you’re doing with the ju and the conference and education and everything around it thank you also very much to you the listeners of this episode of the Foojay podcast keep an eye on our website for future articles about development and everything related to the Java World thanks for listening give me a f give me a j give me the friends of OpenJDK