Tales from the jar side: DevNexus, Null Pointers at the JCP party, AI animals playing casino games, and the usual tweets and toots

Two big windmills are talking. One asks the other, "What kind of music do you like?" The other responds, "I'm a giant metal fan." (rimshot)

Apr 14, 2024

Welcome, fellow jarheads, to Tales from the jar side, the Kousen IT newsletter, for the week of April 7 - 14, 2024. This week I gave two talks at the DevNexus conference in Atlanta, performed at the JCP party with the Null Pointers, and gave my regular Large-Scale and Open Source Computing lecture remotely.

Regular readers of, listeners to, and video viewers of this newsletter are affectionately known as jarheads, and are far more intelligent, sophisticated, and attractive than the average newsletter reader or listener or viewer. If you wish to become a jarhead, please subscribe using this button:

As a reminder, when this message is truncated in email, click on the title to open it in a browser tab formatted properly for both the web and mobile.

DevNexus

DevNexus is one of the few conferences I try to attend every year, whether I’m speaking or not. It’s widely attended, with this year’s group numbering somewhere between 1500 and 1800, which includes many, many people I look forward to seeing.

Here’s one group of them, where we just happened to sit together at lunch:

L to R: Todd Ginsberg, Frank Greco, Bob Paulin (standing), Brian Sam-Bodden, me, Geertjan Wielenga, and Freddy Guime

Frank and Freddie are also in the Null Pointers. Frank is the head of the band and the lead guitarist, and helps run the New York Java SIG. Freddie plays keyboards, used to run the Chicago JUG but is now based in Seattle. Freddie is also a cohost with Bob Paulin on the Off-Heap podcast, which I was fortunate enough to appear on earlier this year. Geertjan writes frequently for the foojay site (Friends of Open JDK) and wrote the best review of my Help Your Boss Help You book ever. I’ve known Todd Ginsberg for years, dating back to our Groovy days together. Brian is an early No Fluff speaker. He is also a one-man diversity program (I think his ancestors are from at least 20 different countries — that’s not an exaggeration; probably more of an underestimate), currently works at Redis, and has been involved in more technical programs than I can count. All of that is just off the top of my head, as well. I’m sure I’m missing much more. I’m really bad at taking pictures, so unfortunately I don’t more to share. I really have to work on that.

I gave two talks at the conference:

JUnit 5’s Best Features
Calling AI tools from Java

Both were quite well attended. For the AI one, that probably wasn’t terribly surprising given the current fads, but I was pleasantly surprised at how many people came to the JUnit talk. That, too, was fun, and many members of the audience were not aware of a lot of the features I talked about.

I got to throw in some jokes into the AI talk, and I included a demo with three tests involving Claude 3: one had Haiku write a haiku, one had Sonnet write a sonnet, and one had Opus write an opus. They did a decent job, though we didn’t dwell on them. I also generated an image of “Cats playing gin rummy”, like in last week’s newsletter:

Again, the cards are a little funky, but you know how cats are. I wouldn’t put it past them to cheat.

On the plane ride down I was bored, so I entertained my wife by generating a series of images using DALL-E 3. Here is one of horses playing Texas Hold 'em:

A lighthearted and engaging image of a group of horses playing Texas Hold 'em, avoiding any creepy elements. The scene is set in a cozy, well-lit stable, with a large round table at the center. Various breeds of horses, depicted in a more natural and less anthropomorphic style, are seated around the table. The horses have a deck of cards and poker chips on the table, and they appear to be playfully engaged in the game. Each horse has a distinctive look, but the overall mood is friendly and amusing, capturing the playful spirit of the game without any unsettling features.

Here are rhinos playing roulette:

A whimsical and colorful image of a group of rhinos playing roulette. The scene takes place in an elegant casino-like setting with a large roulette table in the center. Several rhinos, each with unique characteristics, are standing around the table, some placing bets and others eagerly watching the spinning wheel. The rhinos are portrayed in a less anthropomorphic style, maintaining their natural look while engaging in this human activity. The atmosphere is lively and entertaining, capturing the unusual and amusing concept of rhinos participating in a roulette game.

Here are platypuses (platypi?) playing poker:

A charming and amusing image of a group of platypuses playing poker. The scene is set in a cozy, dimly lit room with a small round table. Several platypuses, each with distinctive features, are seated around the table on cushioned chairs. They are holding playing cards in their paws, with poker chips and cards scattered on the table. The platypuses appear deeply engaged in the game, with expressions of concentration, excitement, and strategy. The atmosphere is whimsical and playful, capturing the unique and comical concept of platypuses participating in a serious game of poker.

And, of course, here are some chickens playing slots:

A humorous and vibrant image of a group of chickens playing slot machines. The setting is a lively casino floor filled with rows of colorful slot machines. The chickens, each with distinct feather patterns and colors, are standing in front of the slot machines, pulling the levers with their beaks or wings. The slot machines have bright lights and displays, creating an energetic and fun atmosphere. The chickens look excited and curious, some watching the spinning reels with anticipation. The scene is playful and whimsical, depicting the amusing idea of chickens trying their luck at the slot machines.

I made a few more, but I’ll spare you. I’m a subscriber to OpenAI, so I have to use up those dollars every month somehow.

Regarding the Null Pointers gig, we played at the JCP (Java Community Process) party. I didn’t get a picture, but Bob Paulin did:

This year’s party celebrated the 25th anniversary of the JCP:

I started using Java back in version 1.0.6, so I remember the beginning, though I was still a research scientist at the time. Looks like I bet my career on the right technology. :)

(Of course, that’s not the only technology I pursued, and some caught on and some didn’t. Best to be flexible.)

Trinity Tripod Article

I couple months ago I was interviewed by a reporter from the Trinity Tripod, the student newspaper at Trinity College (Hartford), where I recently joined the faculty as a Professor of Practice in Computer Science. The article came out this week:

As you can see, they used an old picture of me, from back when I still had hair. That picture is connected to Java, btw. I was speaking at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco in 2019. They had a photographer who was taking pictures of Java Champions, or JUG leaders, or speakers, and I qualified on two out of three. I have to say that’s about the best picture I’ve ever taken.

What you can’t tell is that I happened to be wearing my Steph Curry T-shirt, which naturally went over quite well in SF. 🏀

Just to prove I had a lot of hair at one time, here’s a really old photo I recently unearthed:

I think that’s from about 1996, judging by the age of my son. Next month he’ll be 32, so that was a while ago. When he gives me a hard time about going bald, I remind him his time will come.

As for the Trinity Tripod article, I just asked GPT-4 to summarize it in five bullet points:

Kenneth Kousen, a seasoned academic and tech professional, discusses AI and emerging technologies, emphasizing their transformative potential similar to the rise of the web, while also stressing their current limitations in true comprehension.
Kousen teaches large scale application development at Trinity College, using practical hands-on methods alongside theoretical knowledge, particularly focusing on Java and open-source software.
He highlights the utility of AI in improving efficiency for routine tasks but notes its shortcomings through personal experiences, such as its inadequacy in tasks requiring deep understanding, like simple arithmetic errors made by AI systems like ChatGPT.
Kousen warns of the misconceptions among non-technical managers about AI’s capabilities, which could lead to unrealistic expectations and misapplications in business, advocating for the importance of technical expertise in guiding managerial decisions.
He promotes ongoing learning and adaptation as essential for professionals to remain relevant and influential in an AI-integrated job market, encouraging a proactive approach to understanding and utilizing AI tools effectively.

Sure, close enough. Feel free to read the actual article if you like.

A couple of quick notes before I move on:

My wife came along to Atlanta with me. While I was at the conference all day, she played with her friends who live in the area, doing lots of craft-type activities. She claimed to have had a lot more fun than I did, but I don’t know. Speaking at conferences like that is pretty much what I do for fun.
She also attended the JCP party and was kind in her assessment of the band. I’m going to take that as the gift it is and not push for too many details.
I’ve been enrolled in a YouTube Accelerator program run by Ali Abdaal. As part of the program, I meet on a regular basis with one of their staff, Nathalie Lazo. Since she lives in the Atlanta area, we managed to meet for lunch on Friday. You probably won’t be surprised to hear I forgot to get a picture. Oh well. Maybe next time. I’m trying not to dwell on the fact that she’s my son’s age.
I mentioned above that Brian Sam-Bodden works for Redis. You might be aware (because I talked about it in this edition of the newsletter) of the fact that they changed their license recently, which caused chaos in the open source world. Of course I asked him about it. He downplayed the changes (which I pretty much expected), but we’ll see what happens.

Tweets and Toots

Crocs carrying crocs

Eclipse Week

In Connecticut we had about 75 to 80% totality, and as I understand it, you either have it all or it doesn’t matter. That sentiment is well-expressed by XKCD:

Eclipse Coolness — Mouse-over text: “A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky”

While I didn’t get anywhere near totality, I did manage to collect a few of the good gags.

Lots of government agencies have Twitter accounts. Many of them try to be clever. Only a few (like this one) succeed.

Speaking of succeeding:

Nicely done. You can unblock them now.

Having lived through when that song was originally a hit (circa 1983), I can tell you it was so overplayed I’m still tired of it. Its re-emergence was inevitable, I guess.

I haven’t heard anything about Audrey II yet, but it’s early.

Little Shop of Horrors Gives Us a Disaster Do-Over

(My wife and I have performed Suddenly Seymour in concert many times.)

I used the Eclipse IDE from the time it was released (about 2000 or 2001) until around 2010, when I finally switched over to IntelliJ. It took me years to discover that Sun Microsystems (creator of Java) felt obligated to create NetBeans as a competitor partly because they realized there’s a relationship between the word Eclipse and the word Sun. IBM always denied that was intentional, but I don’t think anyone believed them.

Yeah, not the best idea.

That’s about all I’ll say about that, too.

College Basketball

Of course I was very happy when the UConn men won their back-to-back national championship, but I’m not going to be obnoxious about it.

What I do have to include, however, is this chart about Caitlin Clark:

Brings it home, doesn’t it? Talk about your outliers. South Carolina was a much better team and deserved to win the title, but wow, that’s an amazing chart.

And finally:

As they say, dress for the job you want.

Have a great week, everybody!

The video version of this newsletter will be on the Tales from the jar side YouTube channel tomorrow.

Share Tales from the jar side

Last week:

Two talks at DevNexus in Atlanta, GA.

This week:

Upgrade to Modern Java, an NFJS Virtual Workshop
My regular course on Large-Scale and Open Source Computing at Trinity College (Hartford)
Prepare for all the talks I’m giving at GIDS in Bangalore next week