VMware Explore Barcelona 2023 Recap
Happy Monday and welcome to another edition of the newsletter. I apologize for the delay in updates as I have been busy with work and traveling.
In a recent newsletter, I mentioned that I upgraded my personal website to Nuxt 3. I am really enjoying this upgrade as it has rejuvenated my excitement for my website.
As I started writing this edition of the newsletter, I realized that my speaking page was already outdated because it was static. To address this, I decided to rewrite the page and transfer all the static data into a JSON data file. Instead of doing this manually, I sought the assistance of my good friend, Chat GPT. This is a prime example of how AI can enhance a developer's capabilities.
Anyway, if you visit my speaking page, you will find a list of upcoming and archived talks. I'm really proud of the migration to my new website and would love to put together some content around it if that's something you're interested in learning about. If you are, please reach out to me and let me know that you're interested.
This week, I am going to recap my trip to Barcelona, Spain for VMware Explore Barcelona.
VMware Explore Barcelona
Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Barcelona, Spain for the VMware Barcelona event, and it exceeded my expectations. During the conference, I had the chance to give two presentations, both of which I believe went really well.
Accelerating Innovation with Spring
The first presentation was co-presented with my coworker, Cora Iberkleid, and it was titled "Accelerating Innovation with Spring, The Anniversary Edition." The idea behind this talk stemmed from the fact that we are celebrating 20 years of Spring and 10 years of Spring Boot this year. We decided to start with a brief history lesson on the origins of Spring and highlight some of the major milestones throughout the years.
We then provided an overview of the major themes of Spring Boot 3 and Spring Framework 6. Following that recap, we delved into what to expect in Spring Boot 3.2 and beyond. Our focus was on improving runtime efficiency with Virtual Threads and CRaC, enhancing developer experience with Docker & Testcontainers, and introducing new client abstractions with RestClient and JDBC Client.
If you're interested in watching the recording of this session, you can check it out here.
GraphQL - Code Theater
My next presentation was one that included 0 slides which is always fun. I love to live code but in a long session format it can be quite the challenge. This talk however was only 20 minutes and I had to jam a lot of content into those 20 minutes. After saying a quick prayer to the demo gods, I was off and running.
I had to skip a lot of the intro to GraphQL content and when you might want to use it. If you’re interested in that you can check out the recording from my talk at SpringOne in Las Vegas from earlier this year.
I ended up creating a small application that interacted with a database. I used the posts from my blog to demonstrate its functionality. After setting up the posts, we developed a new GraphQL API and discussed the process of building a schema and connecting it to your Spring Controllers. While there is no recording of this talk, you can refer to the GitHub repository that contains the agenda and code. This will allow you to follow along and create your own API. Since the talk was not recorded, I may consider recording it for my YouTube channel.
Spring Meetup at McLaren Barcelona
We recently had a special Spring Meetup at McLaren in Barcelona. I had the privilege of co-hosting the meetup with my coworker, Cora. We were given a special tour of the three different floors of cars, which was truly amazing.
During the meetup, Cora and I gave a brief introduction to celebrate 20 years of Spring and 10 years of Spring Boot. We shared its history, enjoyed champagne, and indulged in Spring branded cupcakes. I want to express my gratitude to everyone involved for including me in this special event. It was an honor and privilege to be a part of it. 🤩
Barcelona
During my time in Barcelona, I had the opportunity to have dinner with an amazing group of people on two separate occasions. The picture below was taken on the second night, where they served different steaks that were almost cooked and you finish them off right in front of you.
I was also thrilled to finally meet Sergi Almar in person. He can be seen in the dinner picture above, but I also had dinner with him the night before. In case you're not familiar with Sergi, he is the mastermind behind Spring I/O. I hope to return to Barcelona next year for that event and another dinner with Sergi 🥳
Finally, I had the opportunity to be a tourist and visit La Sagrada Familia. Construction of this church began in 1882 and is still ongoing today. It was an impressive architectural achievement, and seeing it in person was an absolutely amazing experience. I also took the opportunity to say a prayer for my family.
✍️ Quote of the week
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."
Robert Collier
Until Next Week
I hope you enjoyed this newsletter installment, and I will talk to you in the next one. If you have any links you would like me to include please contact me and I might add them to a future newsletter. I hope you have a great week and as always friends...
Happy Coding
Dan Vega
[email protected]
https://www.danvega.dev