Java.

Never thought we'd do an
episode on that, did ya?

Java, for serverless functions.

Did I hear that right?

We get a chance to talk with Otavio
Santana, who is a Java champion,

Kubernetes expert, and loves to make dad
jokes, especially at David's expense.

And believe it or not, I
actually left this episode kind

of writing to one from Java.

Maybe.

We did mention Rust, though.

Enjoy the episode.

Welcome to today's episode, Otavio,
you are going to teach us about

something that I generally consider
a curse word, and that is Java.

But we're going to look at this in
a fresh light and understand how

to be successful with Cloud Native
and Java on top of Kubernetes.

Thank you for joining us.

We'll try not to talk
about Rust I guess, right?

Is that the plan?

Yes, the plan of ours . But just
to, to repeat the answer, how can

you use Java Kubernetes and success?

That's easy.

Don't use Java

That's not the answer I was
expecting right off the bat.

Fuck.

Well, all right, that was
the end of the episode.

we'll just keep on moving here.

Thank you.

No, I'm just kidding.

All right.

So first, before we get into that,
right, I know we're going to have

a great conversation about Java,
but I want people to understand who

you are and what you've been up to.

So for anyone who is not familiar
with you and your work, please take

a few moments to introduce yourself
and share anything that you wish.

Okay, so super glad to be here.

my name is Travis Santana.

Most of the time I do
jobs, mainly their jobs.

sometimes hardly I do some code.

Especially around cloud native,
especially because that is what I do

love, do love in the Java community is
help people to engage them and move,

the organization forward using the most
effective techniques, using the Java

enterprise specifications, for example,
under the Jakarta that is under a clear

foundation so, my goal is basically
to help Java developers and software

engineers to make them more effective
and take advantage of open source

and naturally exploring more about
cloud, the cloud native perspectives.

Yeah.

I love that you said to help
people, but that you rarely write

code and right away I was like,
you're a consultant, aren't you?

yes.

I'm actually look a look at your website
and I clicked on the awards page and

there was like 30 different things there.

So you've been doing this Java stuff
for a while and I think you've even

written like eight books, right?

So maybe you can give us a bit of history.

How long have you been doing Java?

What's your background?

Anything else you want to share there?

A long time doing Java more
than I wish, by the way.

You can see my white hairs.

So, since Java 8, I have
been working in Java.

So, if you hate Java on that time, sorry.

I did my best to make Java as
good as possible, but it's hard.

I helped in several Java specifications
through the JCP, where I become

an executive member of the JCP.

So if you're not familiar with JCP,
it's basically the organization who

defines and drives the Java community.

Java does not belong to Oracle, at all.

So we do have several organizations,
several communities working

on the process in Java.

We do have a huge ecosystem people,
organizations, enterprise and so on,

even open source organizations such as
Apache and Eclipse Foundation and have

been working with Java since Java 8.

And with the impact in moving the
Java Enterprise to Eclipse Foundation,

I went and to Eclipse Foundation
work on those Java Enterprise.

Where, yes, I received some awards, like
the JCP awards, the OWL categories, the

Duke Choice awards, that is the Oscar of
Java, at least Top Committer, and so on.

My secret is just don't have social life.

Who cares about people, right?

So, just focus in code.

All right.

Awesome.

So I'm going to date myself here, right?

But I haven't written Java since Java.

I'm going to say 1.

4. I was in college.

This was early 2000s.

I didn't enjoy it, I never wrote it again.

I dropped out of college, I hated
it so much actually, and got a

job right in peril, which, looking
back, probably not my smartest move.

But, you know, whatever.

Tell me about the evolution of Java
over the last You know, 10 to 15 years.

Well, you know, from Java 8
to where we are today, because

obviously the language is evolving.

It's modernizing.

We have containers now.

I'm assuming we don't just throw
Tomcat servers on the Internet

and run our applications anymore.

Like what is and where is Java today?

All

I usually see improvement in the language.

for example, to handle with data with
String API, a new API to handle with data.

We have the The point project where
they go is to simplify the Java syntax,

such as diamonds due work with some
generic keys on the best way as possible.

We do have record to work with data
on the infrastructure way to see Java.

We have several improvements on
the JVM's, garbage collectors.

Right now we do have the T1
better and avoid stop the words.

The nightmare of anybody who has a huge
application several improvements to

modules and improvements to the container.

When I mention container,
don't think only about Docker,

think about the open container.

So the, This is the way that we have
designed the JVM right now is to make

sure that all, almost all containers that
had Java will take advantage of the JVM.

So it's a totally different
Java, since Java 4.

It's a huge, huge time ago.

Right, let's revisit your joke
from the start of the episode.

If you want to be successful with Java
on Kubernetes, don't use Java, right?

Let's actually dig into this a little bit.

Because, you know, we're looking at
the cloud native landscape today.

Apple has just released Pickle, which is a
config management which was built in Java.

We've got Kafka, which is the almost de
facto service bus, queue, topic, whatever.

A whole bunch of different things, right?

It does a whole lot these days.

Built on Java.

We've got Elasticsearch built on Java.

I mean, Cloud Native.

has a lot of Java components and it's
ecosystem and production shipping and make

it money for a whole bunch of companies.

So, you know, can people are people
are being successful, but how do

we get to this stage where Java is
in the enterprise software is the

modern cloud native microservice
approach to building software?

Yeah, my first advice is work to
the most up to date JVM as possible.

I know several companies try to
keep on Java 8, Java 4, and so

on but if you do that, you won't
be able to take the most updated.

enhancement on the JVM, for example,
to work better with Kubernetes with

Docker or any kind of container.

If you take a look, for example, at the
beginning of Java 8, every time that

you work with Java in the container,
there was an issue because for the

JVM, there was not the container.

It took the whole machine
instead of considering just

a container that is inside.

Right now, we take that
into consideration.

So, if that Java is running
inside a container, we are taking

a look in several enhancements
in the CISO operation as well.

right now, we do have more
modern, applications to avoid the

huge start time that Java had.

If you remember some time ago,
Java took couple of seconds

to warm up the application.

Right now, we do have several
frameworks that can do it in a couple

of seconds like any dynamic language.

Okay, so, Quarkus sometimes
might be faster than Node.

js because it can be converted.

So native language, for example,
I can convert the JVM to, native

instructions using GraalVM, for example.

So the Java ecosystem is huge.

And the good way to take advantage of
that in the Java, in the JVM itself,

is keeping your ecosystem updated.

What I said.

the huge tradeoff that we do have
in Java keeping the compatibility.

That's means when you move between
versions, the impact might be super

time, especially because the way they
were designed is to keep this way.

So if you are in Java 8 and move to
Java, 23, 24, whatever, the impact

of doing that might be super time.

Naturally, you can write more code
with less, less methods because you

have more Suga syntax inside Java.

So my first advice is
keep updated with Java.

Every six months, we're going
to have a release and we have

a huge ecosystem right now.

So it's Spring, Jakarta, Quarkus,
Micronauts, Andon, and so on.

Yeah, so I think the crux
of what you said there.

if I remember correctly before Java 8,
the problem was the JVM doesn't respect

the control groups of Linux, right?

So when you run a container and say
you have access to one CPU and 120

Mega Ram, as the JVM had no idea
those constraints were in place.

It would outscale what it was doing.

It would get, you know, broken
to a certain degree, and,

and then not work any longer.

So you're saying that from Java eight,
those are now respected and it's,

it plays a part in the container
ecosystem, which is really good to know.

So, and obviously I'm assuming,
again, I don't know this space

but Java is not oblivious to the fact that
containers and Kubernetes exist over here.

So they're, they're, they're
considering it as a target platform.

Containers and production is where the
JVM, whoever the governing bodies are,

the Eclipse Foundation and others,
want to push the project forward so

that it is a first class citizen.

Is that a correct assumption?

Yes, Yes, a

If you have several companies,
organizations looking for it,

that's where we should go.

So, for example, A long, long time
ago, the OpenJDK, the JVM reference

implementations, because yes, in
Java, we have the specifications,

we do have the, the spec, and we
have multiple implementations.

The one, the, the reference
implementation used to be a Mercurial,

and because a lot of people did
the pressure to move to GitHub.

With the, the organization decide
to move on to GitHub because they

want to collaborate even more.

So yes, basically we are driven by
community because a lot of people,

commuters all from the community,
including myself, for example.

So now my thought process is right
Java is modernizing is container

native to a certain degree is moving
in the right direction to be where

other software is in 2025, right?

From my understanding, again, so
limited and I wish I had done a

bit more Java in my life, right?

The JVM.

Don't worry, Dont'worry.

We just had that on recording, by the way.

No!

What I mean is, the JVM was always famous.

You leave Java but could be worse?

You could leave Rust.

Woah, woah, woah, woah,
woah, woah, woah, woah, woah.

Read the room, man, read the room.

Oh, alright, sorry.

Go ahead So, the J

I'm really enjoying this.

I think what people always told me when
I go to conferences and events, what

they loved about the JVM, right, is that
you run your application on the JVM and

it runs for days, weeks, months, years.

The JVM had this wonderful ability
to actually dynamically modify code

paths over time and optimize, right?

Do, I mean, how much of that has
been sacrificed in order to support

ephemeral workloads in Kubernetes?

Like, at what point?

Does the JVM stop being famous for its
optimization for long running workloads

and hot code pass they just being
another runtime and there's nothing

wrong with being another runtime.

Rust is just another runtime.

Go is just another runtime.

There's nothing special about them.

But the JVM was always
special and it was enterprise.

It was mainframe.

It did optimizations.

And this is now going away.

What's your thoughts on the
trade offs that are being made?

I

mean that's a beautiful Java.

As

As I

mentioned before, we
do have multiple JVMs.

And that means we can have
specialized JVMs to each scenario.

For example, Azul, they do, they
have, they have several JVMs.

That includes one specialized
to run in containers.

We also have, for example, GraalVM
that can convert your code to native.

It's super doable to use as native for
example, If I want to use satellites,

and you don't need to have a garbage
collector that's the ratio, right?

I'm going to run

deploy

the application, run and kill apllication

Silence.

I don't need to have JIT.

I don't need to have garbage collector.

I don't need to have any
enhancement around the JVM because.

At the end, I will start, run, and queue.

Hmm.

So, in Java on the other side
have a huge ecosystem to make that

configurable or, you can change the
product without changing your code.

And that's the beauty of Java.

So, okay, I want to use right now the
GraalVM and convert my code to native

because I want to use serverless.

Okay, go ahead.

You might change your
framework, and that is it.

Or I want to use a Azure, go
ahead and we have a couple of JVM

implementations to make it possible.

Okay, I think the title of this
episode is just going to be the one

where David was ignorant, because
I'm learning so much about what I

don't know about the Java ecosystem.

Like the fact that there's
multiple, JVM implementations.

Again, as far as I'm concerned, it
was just the Sun Microsystem one.

You go to the website, you click download.

So like, it's my knowledge in this space
is very, very dated, but I have, You

know, through my periphery, I kept an
eye on the Graal project because I've

always thought it was really interesting
that they're allowing you to take GVM

languages and get that native code.

Essentially, to the best of my
understanding, cross compilation

from Java bytecode to ELF binaries
or whatever system you're targeting.

Is that correct?

Yes, especially because right now we
do have the serverless reality, right?

the point of Java is the same challenge
that we do have for any software.

Java is 30 years old, right?

Nobody realize that you're
gonna need five less application

three years, 30 years right?

and that is what Javi is doing.

So it's make it possible using all the
best techniques of the evolutionary.

architecture to refactor your code,
if in doubt, change the behaviour

and make, make modules, to make it
possible to have multiple scenarios.

I usually say that open
source goes beyond philosophy.

It's the most advanced
software engineer in the world.

I mean, if you want to learn
how to do a good software, just

go to any open source project.

We can do that using tasks
to keep the behavior.

You can have a good documentation, can
live without thousands of meetings.

We can write emails instead of that.

That might look impossible for
you, who is manager, but yes,

we can survive without manager.

a lot of meetings.

Right.

If someone had told me an hour
ago that they were doing Java as

serverless, I would have laughed.

And now I'm like, shit,
I'm gonna have to try this.

So, all

You know I haven't really done a
lot of Java in myself since like six

years ago or something like that.

but I, I have heard a lot about
various, projects, I think I've

heard a little bit about Quarkus.

I don't know much about it.

Yes.

No,

But I guess my question is, like,
how big is this ecosystem now?

Like, I kind of am in the same spot
as David in that I don't know a ton

about it, but I've heard a lot of
various bits and pieces here and there.

So Iike, is, is it, like, there's hundreds
of thousands of options, or are we

talking, really, there's only, like, two
or three that you probably should explore

first before diving into the rest of it?

Mm hmm.

we do have a huge, we have
a huge ecosystem in Java.

Quarkus is the one, for example.

We do have Spring.

Using, if you want to use, for example,
Guarube java Enterprise Specification

or Jakarta, for example, we can see
GlassFish, Piranha, Palidon, OpenLiberty.

It's a huge amount of implementation.

If I need to do a ballparking, I
guess around, 25, 30 ecosystems

that you can use to explore.

Gotcha.

That makes sense.

think is the best

right, can I,

one?

Oh,

I know

and that's name your favorite!

None of those Rossi's.

Oh, oh, there we go.

You to my good books.

There we

go.

You knew it was coming.

But, I'm super Rossi Rossi.

So I start to doing the
records in Rossi right now.

There you go.

Well, this, this was lead
on to my next question.

So absolutely perfect segue here.

Right.

But I wanted to ask you
a personal question.

There's possibly a hard question, right?

I'm assuming you're aware
other languages exist, right?

You probably played with
some, as you said, you could

maybe do a little bit of Rust.

I would love to know.

What is your draw to Java like when you
look at all these languages and you think

this is cool and this is cool and maybe
you can even share two other languages

you think are interesting but then at the
end of the day you are saying I like to

write java and I'd love to know what how
do we sell it to the people listening to

this episode why should they write Java
so tell me why did you come back to it you

I, I enjoy a lot of language, jokes
aside, I try Ross, Kotlin, Python, and

I do believe tools are tools, right?

I need to use the best
choice to the my scenario.

I believe that.

It doesn't matter how amazing
Java is, Java is not religion.

It's just the best option in the
world, but it's not religion.

All right, let me reframe
that question for you then.

Sorry.

Because you dodged it very nicely.

it just suppose to be seriosus let's just,

There's no seriousness on this

Okay, so go ahead.

part

it

out?

It's fine.

The more trolling of David
we can do, the better.

Okay, I take a note on that.

Well, what I'm thinking is right,
what we want people to get away, is

a fresh perspective on Java, right?

I know myself coming into this,
you know, we've got blinkers.

You know, I've been writing Rust for
a while ago for longer than that.

And, you know, to me, Java has this
perception in my head of just being

an antiquated enterprise language.

And that's not the case.

I know that's not the case, but we
have these, you know, misconceptions.

And what I want people to walk away
from this episode with is, well,

maybe I should give it a second look
and maybe I should play with it.

But the crux of the question is they
want to write cloud native microservices.

and you're not going to go download
the GVM and do that right away.

There's decisions that need to be made.

I'm assuming this comes down to adopting
a framework that is microservice ready.

But, you know, maybe in three, four,
five steps, however many it takes.

Give the audience that journey.

If you want to write a microservice
right now in Java, what are their

options and what do they have to do?

Okay.

As I said, we have a usual amount
of solution in the markets.

Let's use the, let's use Laura's sample.

She mentioned backwards, right?

So I can do a microservice with two
classes, where one is my entity class,

and my second one is my interface.

And that is it.

Right now, I do have my crude operation
using REST and I can move it to a cloud

native or container, whatever you wish.

So, you can really make it fast with Java,
especially with the newest frameworks.

The biggest challenge with Java
is people are learning Java 1.

4 and believe that Java
did not change for that.

No offense, David, but
it, it changed a lot.

And what happened also is, we have
new modern frameworks with Java.

So Spring does a really beautiful job.

As I mentioned, Quark was with
two classes spring provides a

thing pretty similar to that.

Of course the beauty of Java is
the ecosystem, You can have Quarkus

with pretty similar capabilities
using two interface or so on.

I want to use spring so you can explore
spring data where you have defined your

entity and then with the interface,
they will handle the whole database

connection for you or you want to
use everything by your bare hands.

Go for it.

you have a huge amount
of flavor to make Java.

The easiest way, as I said, or the most
complex way, for some random reason,

once you learn how the things happen
behind, you can go explore for it.

About why learn Java, the stability
of the language, the ecosystem,

the community, a huge amount of
people are behind Java right now.

So if you compare to another language, for
example, as far I know, Microsoft, C sharp

has a single company behind it, right?

That is Microsoft.

So if Microsoft decided to, okay, I
want to move, the language is gone.

In Java, the chance that's happened
is pretty low because if Oracle

decides to leave, okay, we do have
another huge amount of organizations

working in Java right now.

Again, thousands of JVMs,
thousands of solutions and so on.

And we, inside the JCP, we do have
the Java Education Ecosystems to

take a look on how to learn Java and
take care of the new generations.

That's why we do have the RAP and
new features to make sure that

people can learn, easily Java.

and break this myth about Java is
super hard, is understandable, and

so on and another point that I'd
love to highlight in Java is mainly

because Java is a production language.

And this verbosity is to make easy
to read and understand your code,

especially because on production, on
finance, we also need to read code.

It's not about read, writing features.

It's about to read and maintain
what I do have, and sometimes we

have code for, 10, 15 years ago.

So it's, needs to be
readable as much as possible.

So it's a trade off of language.

At the end, we are handled with the
language design and language decisions,

and naturally, okay I'm going explore
the verbosity of Java here to make

it more readable, or I will try to
reduce as much as possible, make

the code sometimes not readable.

But even for that, Java has, for example,
the var variable, so we can do the var.

A equals something.

so the ecosystem Java is super flexible.

So come to Java.

Fuck, I think I want to write some Java.

All right.

And every time that you download
Java, the JVM right now, you will

receive a wine, free wine by David.

Oh What?

about that?

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I guess one of my questions is how
often do you run into the misconception

that java is still all oracle?

After the you know, because sun is the

Yeah.

I

of java and everybody thinks that
oh look sun got bought by oracle.

Therefore java is an oracle thing
How often do you run into that?

I see the question all the time.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I

bet

Every single day.

Especially because if you look
to another language, It's not

happened more often, right?

for example, Kotlin, usually it has a
huge community, but it's supported by

a unique company called, if I'm not
mistaken, the same, if you're looking

to, I guess JB has a different approach,
but in general, we do have a huge company

behind with people contributing in too.

So naturally the people think about,
okay, it might be the same with Java,

but not, Java has a huge JSP Java
community process to make sure that we

do have a user transparency on the GSR,
the Java specification requests, where

people can vote, can review, and it does
not belong only to a single company.

It's a field tolerance in the process.

Right.

You mentioned Kotlin there.

I think that's the programming
language that spun out of JetBrains,

if I remember correctly, right?

There's also Scala, there's Clojure,
I'm sure there's other major JVM

based languages like Are they still
important in 2025, given the fact

that the Java language itself is
continuing to evolve as the need for

these other languages becoming less?

Are those still pushing forward
and innovating in their own right?

And at what point do you, do you
jump between the languages when

you're on the JVM or do you stick
firmly within the Java camp itself?

I believe it still is Java
in the JVM specification.

But as highlight, the JVM does
not understand the Java code.

The JVM understands bytecode.

So at the end, if the language generates
bytecode for Java, it doesn't matter.

Okay, about those languages from
Java, like Scala, Kotlin, and so on.

Those have some
specializations, some niches.

For example, as far as I know,
Kotlin goes mostly around mobile

applications with Android.

Scala goes more to functional
programming, if I'm not mistaken on that.

I do believe those are important
and make the Java consistent great.

However, those go more to the niche, and
Java, brings more the generic approach.

So, you can do a little bit of
functional programming with Java.

You can do a little bit of object
oriented programming in Java.

Data oriented programming
in Java, and so on.

So, it's not a special design.

It specializes like another language.

But, with Java, you can do a little
bit of those features directly.

Thank you.

All right.

Okay, is there any question you would
like us to ask you before we wrap this up?

Do you know why we have Google
Chrome and Slack right now?

No,

So,

To prove that

so why, why do we have Google
Chrome and Slack right now?

to prove that JVM is not happy.

Like everybody said.

Interesting.

I don't get it.

All

You

right.

Awesome.

want

I'm really, I'm really happy.

This is giving me a lot
of food for thought.

Like I never thought I'd be considering
writing any Java, but knowing that it's

a language that's modernized to the point
I can run it successfully in a container.

I love what Apple are doing with Pickle.

And I'm like, you know, am I missing
out on something by not playing with it?

It's like my, my old rusty head
is going, Oh, maybe I need to

start poking this thing again.

So

So, now I know.

I know why you kept shoving all
that Java code off onto me When

we were at the same company.

Yeah.

Okay.

I understand now

Thanks for joining us.

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Fm.

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and tell next time when exploring
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on three.

1, 2, 3. Don't forget your compass.

Don't forget

your compass.