We continue the lowdown on Java conferences. Having looked initally at sessions from three Voxxed events, last week we explored two Devoxx events and JavaOne. This week it's the turn of JChampions and JDConf.

JChampions was one of the first to kick off the new year, running from 23th of January to the 28th, virtually and sporting quite a few interesting sessions.

So let's start by de-Spring-ifying with "Serverless Java in Action: Cloud Agnostic Design Patterns and Tips" run by Frank Delaporte. It went through how to utilize Quarkus in order to create a production-grade, cloud-agnostic, event-driven serverless solution, further deployed on Kubernetes. A very useful tutorial since Java has been pushing strongly on the Cloud native front.

In another front that Java is fighting at lately, is that of upgrading old code from version 8 to the newer LTS releases. So "Cracking Tricky Java Code Challenges From Java 8 to Java 24" shows what changed since version 8, focusing on the newest core language features that simplify coding and ease the developer's day to day work. Learning to use the latest Java features in your applications does also prepare you for passing Java interviews and taking Java certifications.

Finally, another front that Java has declared war in, is that of making the language easier to teach. We've recently explored the issue in "Making Java Easier For The Beginner" :

Java is an intimidating language for the complete beginner, but now there is hope of simplification in the recently proposed JEP512. And the fact that it is 512 must count for something - right?

As such Ken Fogel's talk on "How my views on teaching Java have changed" goes through his frequent complains about the many aspects of Java that either had to be taught on day one or that students had to be told to ignore; just like the notorious "Java Hello World" example that utilizes System.out.println, as explained on the aforementioned article:

public class HelloWorld {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
      System.out.println("Hello, World!");
   }
}

There is a lot here that the beginner is going to struggle to understand and indeed most of the time the whole thing is just wished away with a "you don't need to know about that". But even if the beginner is wimpy enough to accept the boilerplate, they generally can't help but ask what System.out.println is all about? The problem is that all of the boilerplate is about programming in the large and has nothing to add to the simple Hello World in the small.

So this session talks about the recent JEPs that render the language more approachable and the ways that they changed Mr.Fogel's perception and teaching directions.

Now let's move on to JDConf 2025. JDConf is Microsoft's premier virtual Java event. This year it took place between April 9 and 10 and was themed after "Code the Future with AI" to indicate the main focus of the conference was exploring Java's role in advancing AI-powered solutions.

Live streamed for three timezones, Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA, didn't make it easy for those wanting to catch it all. Well fear not, since all the talks have now been uploaded to youtube and as such available to be consumed on demand.

The material was overwhelming so we singled out few of the most worthy of mention, but also providing links to all the rest. True to this year's theme, the America's stage kick off keynote was "Code the Future with Java and AI" where Amanda Silver went through how Java developers can harness the power of AI in using Visual Studio Code, GitHub Copilot and Azure services.

Other AI related America stage talks were:

• Boosting AI Developer Experience with Quarkus, LangChain4j, and Azure OpenAI
• How to Build Agents with Spring AI
• Test Smarter, Not Harder: AI-Driven Test Development

Again, focusing on the Cloud native front we find the insightful talk "Java Cloud-Native Shoot-Out: InstantOn vs CRaC vs Native Image" which goes through these ways which render low resource usage and quick start-up times possible, both factors critical for Cloud based workloads.

And we're wrapping it up with at a talk of the EMEA track which looked at Java's future. The "Hidden Gems of Java 25" look at Java SE's 25 hidden gems, including new cool language features, compiler changes, library additions, critical bug fixes, and deprecated stuff that makes your migration easy to the new Java 25.

That's it for this week, but not all, since Spring.io, KotlinConf and JNation are upcoming!

More Information

JChampions 2025

Serverless Java in Action: Cloud Agnostic Design Patterns and Tips

Cracking Tricky Java Code Challenges From Java 8 to Java 24

How my views on teaching Java have changed

Full stream

JDConf 2025

Code the Future with Java and AI

Java Cloud-Native Shoot-Out: InstantOn vs CRaC vs Native Image

The Hidden Gems of Java 25

Full stream

Related Articles

Making Java Easier For The Beginner

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