Duke's Corner

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Cristian Schuszter at JavaOne 2026. Cristian is a PhD in systems engineering and a Tech Lead at CERN in Geneva. He's been at CERN for 8 years, but he's been coding since he was eight years old. He loves working with and contributing to the Java community and other Open Source projects. This was Cristian's first JavaOne, and his session, "30 Years of Java Development: Keeping it All Together," covered how CERN keeps Java running across teams since 1998. Like any large company, CERN uses a lot of legacy code supporting systems that, in Cristian's words, "need to keep running." Java is not only used for business critical applications at CERN but also for accelerator system operations. On working at CERN among Nobel laureates, Cristian said, "I felt like I thrived in this kind of environment." Cristian also helped revive the Voxxed Days developer conference at CERN and started the CERN Java User Group.

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Martin Chalupa from Netflix at JavaOne 2026. Martin is a software developer with about eight years at Netflix and about twenty years working with Java. At Netflix, Martin works on the JVM ecosystem team, which grew from the build tooling team and now also handles broader JVM work such as tuning, garbage collection, and upgrading. In his session at JavaOne Martin covered Java ahead of time compilation and Project Leyden, and he shared what Netflix has learned from experimenting with the technology.
Just as many software developers, Martin found his way into engineering through this experience gaming as a kid. He built his first game in Java for the old Nokia phones as a school project. He has watched Java change a great deal over the years. The language keeps getting more comfortable and more approachable for young developers. His advice for students is to explore different options and find their own passion in the work. "With a little bit of work you can achieve some cool stuff," he says. So, get out there and "discover your passion."
Martin at LinkedIn
Jim at LinkedIn

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Luiz Real, an engineer and college professor from the SouJava Community in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Luiz came to JavaOne 2026 for the first time this year to build relationships, catch up on the latest technical features in Java, and to mix with the Java Champions. He says building those connections is something you can only do in person at a conference like this. "JavaOne for me is a career changing thing," he says. In this conversation Luiz also talks about teaching Java to students, the opportunities for Java developers in the world of AI, and the massive community of Java developers in Brazil.
Luiz Real, Lead Software Engineer, Oracle ACE, College Professor 
Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Henri Tremblay at JavaOne 2026. Henri is a Java Champion, Montreal JUG leader, and EasyMock lead developer from Montreal, Canada. Henri's session at JavaOne covered the Java Memory Model, which is a topic he believes every Java developer should understand well. He's been to six JavaOne's and had warm words for the conference, which represents a rare opportunity to meet the people whose code runs on systems and devices all over the world. He had clear advice for developers: read books, understand how and why your code works, and get out there and join the community. On AI, Henri sees real value for efficiency and learning, but at the same time he warns against laziness, especially when reviewing code. For students and junior developers, he says they should also leverage AI for learning, but he advises that they internalize the fundamentals of software engineering.
LinkedIn: Henri Tremblay, Jim Grisanzio.

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Java Developer Relations talks with Bruno Borges from Microsoft at JavaOne 2026. Bruno works on GitHub's Core AI developer relations team. The conversation covers the future of Java in a world of AI, the value of learning core computer science fundamentals in school, the shifting role for software developers from just writing code to architecting higher level systems, the new business value opportunities for developers as they leverage AI technologies, and Bruno's new AI-assisted website called Java Evolved that visually compares old and new Java code patterns.
Bruno Borges, Java Champion, Principal Product Manager for Java at Microsoft (Bruno on X) | Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations: (Jim on X)