The Javaland Experience – Part 2

The second day in Javaland

For the start of the second day, I picked out a lecture on a super exciting topic, even though Setlog is admittedly not so progressive that one could apply the knowledge there.

It was about Quantenco: Those devices that sound like science fiction and are currently being developed in large research laboratories.

But before I could listen to the lecture, I had to know where to go.

The lecture took place at STOCKs.

This was the only place I wasn’t on the first day.

So I asked my colleagues in the morning.

They said I had to leave the park for that, followed by one: “We’re not kidding you.”

And I have dear colleagues: They really didn’t fool me.

So, out of the main entrance, across the street and a parking lot and with other quantum computer enthusiasts, I went into STOCKs.

In a 40-minute lecture on quantum computers, you can’t expect to know everything about the topic afterwards.

Of course, the speaker could only scratch the surface.

But he did this very didactically with a children’s gymnastics ball as Mr. Qubit .

For me this was the only visit to STOCKs, afterwards I went back to the amusement park to continue the excursion there.

Thematically it went on with Event Sourcing first, in order to hear afterwards the Community Keynote.

After the keynote from the first day, our expectations were not so high, so that only three of us listened to it.

The format was very surprising for us: it was more of a game show.

First two people Gradle and a Maven-representative had to build something out of Duplo and the audience could vote on which build system built better.

Then we tried a similar way to determine if NetBeans or Eclipse is the better IDE and if Jakarta EE (formerly Java EE) or Spring is better.

Among other things, two opponents had to give lectures on completely absurd slides, which they did not know.

And here Ed Burns – the speaker of the keynote from the first day – gave a great presentation.

We agreed that this spontaneous presentation with unknown nonsense slides was better than the prepared keynote of the first day.

All in all, the community keynote was a totally entertaining event that had no claim to anything meaningful.

After the community keynote it would have been a good time to eat.

But “unfortunately” there was a lecture which interested me a lot.

It was about Fluent APIs.

The presentation was based on a DZone article by Lukas Eder and the code generator javageci.

The lecture motivated me to go a little further with the topic afterwards.

At the latest after the Fluent API presentation it would have been time to eat something.

But now there was a lecture about Java Web Start which I didn’t want to miss.

So: Quickly queue up in front of the pizza house, choke down two large pieces of pizza and sit down quietly five minutes late.

My stomach protested slightly with stomach ache during the action, but I missed very little of the lecture.

There’s still time to eat healthy after the end of the excursion.

The lectures went on until 17:40 o’clock.

I was already looking forward to the delicious dinner, where the time for a reasonable lunch was missing.

And then my colleagues had good news for me: We had a free choice of what we wanted to eat.

Unfortunately, they also had bad news for me: the free choice applies to everything outside Javaland.

On the second evening there is neither a roller coaster nor anything to eat in Javaland.

None of us had been aware of that before.

We talked a little with two colleagues from Codecentric and went to our hotel afterwards.

There we said goodbye to a colleague, because he had to leave Javaland: He didn’t have a visa for the workshop day, because unfortunately all places were occupied.

Afterwards we went for a delicious meal.

The Workshop

The third day was the workshop day.

And there we quickly realized why there was no dinner on the second day: Only a fraction of the participants came to the workshops, so that for most Javaland inhabitants the second day was also the last.

When I registered, I decided to do a workshop on the Java module system.

The workshop was held by Nicolai Parlog (a.k.a. CodeFX ), who was supported by Christian Stein.

I had already heard a convincing presentation about innovations in Java 9 from Nicolai at the JUG Dortmund.

He also wrote a book on the subject.

So I assumed that he would be a competent workshop leader.

And this expectation has been confirmed.

At the workshop you could learn a lot, never lost touch and still you were never underchallenged.

So exactly as it should be.

After the workshop we went home for the remaining three of us.

The excursion was a complete success and we will hopefully be there again next year.

Review

Looking back, the excursion to Javaland was a complete success.

My fear that it might be an alibi event to visit an amusement park during working hours was clearly not confirmed.

During the numerous lectures and conversations one could learn a lot of new things.

I am sure that we took some impulses with us, which we will implement in our daily work.

And even if you were able to enjoy some attractions at Phantasialand on the first day after work:

The rest of the event was hard work.

Yes, there were three exhausting days after which we were exhausted.

But above all that were beautiful days that we would like to repeat.

The venue was also great away from the *Open Park* on the first evening.

In an amusement park there is a very special atmosphere that you don’t have at other conferences.

Everything has a beautiful facade, and beautiful background music plays outside all the time.

Most of the lecture halls were fantastically furnished, with lots of decoration and lighting effects.

Everything is designed in such a way that you are set in certain moods.

My absolute favourite room was the Winter Garden.

Here there was a two-storey stage that reminded more of a theatre than a conference.

The stage was illuminated in blue and red and epic music came from the loudspeakers.

This was only switched off during the lectures, immediately afterwards it was switched on again.

This kept you in a very special mood the whole time.

The only shortcoming of the Winter Garden: Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough space for your legs.

But otherwise the winter garden was simply Wow!

Just like the rest of Javaland.