We now have a generation of developers joining our organisations and workforces that are younger than Java. They have grown up with an ever-expanding catalog of applications, languages and frameworks at their fingertips. The question is, should we still be encouraging them to develop and code in Java? Is Java still relevant to this generation? If so, how can we entice more young developers to tackle the JVM?
Sebastian Daschner is a Java Developer Advocate at IBM, a consultant, author, and trainer. He is the author of the book ‘Architecting Modern Java EE Applications’. Sebastian is participating in the JCP, helping forming the future standards of Java EE, serving in the JAX-RS, JSON-P and Config Expert Groups and collaborating on various open source projects. For his contributions in the Java community and ecosystem he was recognized as a Java Champion, Oracle Developer Champion and double 2016 JavaOne Rockstar. Besides Java, Sebastian is also a heavy user of Linux and cloud native technologies. He evangelizes computer science practices on https://blog.sebastian-daschner.com, his newsletter, and on Twitter via @DaschnerS. When not working with Java, he also loves to travel the world — either by plane or motorbike.
Dalia Abo Sheasha is the development lead for the IBM WebSphere Migration Tools. Her team develops several migration tools that deal with a variety of scenarios including Java SE migrations and on-premise to cloud migrations. Dalia has worked on WebSphere for 5 years starting her career with the EJB team and transitioning to the JPA team where she contributed to the open-source projects: EclipseLink and OpenJPA.
Angie Jones is a Senior Developer Advocate who specializes in test automation strategies and techniques. She shares her wealth of knowledge by speaking and teaching at software conferences all over the world, writing tutorials and technical articles on angiejones.tech, and leading the online learning platform, Test Automation University.
Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., and an instructional professor at the University of Houston.
He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly-invited speaker at several international conferences. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects.
Venkat is a (co)author of multiple books, including the 2007 Jolt Productivity award winning book Practices of an Agile Developer. His latest book is Functional Programming in Java: Harnessing the Power of Java 8 Lambda Expressions. You can reach him by email at venkats at agiledeveloper dot com or on twitter at @venkat_s.
Mark Heckler is a Pivotal Principal Technologist & Spring Developer Advocate, conference speaker, published author, & Java Champion focusing upon developing innovative production-ready software at velocity for the Cloud and IoT applications. He has worked with key players in the manufacturing, retail, medical, scientific, telecom, and financial industries and various public sector organizations to develop and deliver critical capabilities on time and on budget. Mark is an open source contributor and author/curator of a developer-focused blog (https://www.thehecklers.com) and an occasionally interesting Twitter account (@mkheck).
Grace is a technical evangelist at IBM, primarily advocating the Reactive Platform offering. She has a degree in Biology with a specialty in the modelling and prediction of biological systems. She has spoken at both internal and external conferences (e.g. DevoxxUK, THINK and QCon London).
