Interview with Fred Guime organizer Chicago Java UG at GOTO Chicago 2014

Hi, it’s Mike with UGtastic. I’m here at GOTO Conf 2014. I ‘m sitting here with Fred Gime, who is the president of the Chicago Java Users Group. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me. My pleasure. So, Chicago Java Users Group, and you’re the president, you’re the president of the Chicago Java Users Group. Yeah, that sounds so great right now. It is. It sounds like a very formal group. Do you have to wear robes? Oh yeah, yeah, we have a whole shebang and 41 tons of wood, but not really. It sounds lovely. I’d have to visit. But no, so the group, I know it’s been through a few iterations, but can you tell me about where it is now and how you got involved with it? So, so it is. So what happens is, is we sort of went through like a phase where, where, you know, there was a couple of transitions that happened. And, and I know the group was not as active as, as, you know, would like it to be in Chicago. So one of the things that happened was, you know, I started getting involved and I started pulling in. You know, we got, you know, Bob Pauling, Mike Manoa, then, you know, Danny Pan. They all come here and then we start working with the group. And one of the things we wanted to do is, is sort of this idea that… Oh, you’re walking away. Yeah, sorry. Sort of this idea that Chicago is a great place to be a developer. Right. Right. So, so we looked around and, and, and it sort of like started like selfishly. So, you know, I work for, for a company in Chicago and then we’re like, you know, looking for developers. And then sort of you realize there’s nowhere to be found. You know, it’s, it’s like, you know, then we go to, we went to the universities and then we see like, oh, there’s brain drain. It’s like people are going to California, they’re going to New York. They don’t want to stay here in Chicago. And we’re like, why is that? And, and part of it is, it was like, you know, there’s, we do have like the Midwestern values of people just work and stuff. But, but we’re missing that sort of like that, that programmer culture in here. And we’re like, we have such big companies, you know, you know, like Google is opening an office here. You know, we definitely have, you know, like Groupon is here, you know, Orbitz is here, you know, CME is here. We have such many developers and we’re trying to figure out how can we make this a better place for being a developer? Right. So, so, you know, the first thing is, you know, start, you know, start doing a podcast, you know, javapubhouse.com. Okay. And then it’s, you know, sort of trying to educate people about how to program in Java. Then we go to JavaOne. And that was javapubhouse. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And .com. So, so if you check that out. Oh, please do. Yeah. So, so, so then, then we go to JavaOne and say, go back to your group, get involved. So, you know, come back here, you know, we see that the group was in transition because the prior president, you know, he was just moving away and just, you know, job revocation. And we sort of were stagnant a little bit. I mean, our meetings were sort of like, you know, you showed up, there was, you know, the presenter, there were like seven people showed up, you know, two of them were recruiters. One of them was, as part of the C job, you know, took over as a group representative. And then you get three people that show up because they always like to show up. Right. So, so then, then we’re like, look at it. This is, this is pretty bad because we have so many Chicago Java developers. So, so we took it like a year and a half ago and we said, we’re going to push this through. We’re going to start getting the word out and we’re going to start having a schedule. We’re going to start bringing good speakers. And, and, and it took a lot of effort. You know, we, we opened up a meetup, we organized the meet ups and, and, you know, we grew up from essentially, you know, five, 10 people. Now in our meetup group, we have, we just crushed 900. Wow. And you, you brought it back to, I mean, it was a life support. Yeah. I wouldn’t say me. It’s, it’s. But you, it was like, we’re all you. Three guys are president in the groves. Yeah. No, no, it was no, but, but the reality is we got a lot of, you know, I mean, I was lucky enough to run into, into Buckle and Michael, you know, Jenny and, and they all like, like give back the spirit, you know what I mean? As you know, you have to sort of be crazy to do this use of groups. Right. So there’s, there’s really no benefit, you know, to it. Like, you know, I mean, there, there might be some, but really there’s some financial benefit is more time. And a lot of them is a lot of pain, but you know, when you get that, that guy that says, you know, thanks for everything. That was super cool. Then it’s like, all right, that made my day for the next month. Right. And, and, and we really push it because we, I do believe, and I always say this is like a preacher. Every time I go and talk to our group, it’s like Chicago has no reason to envy New York or California. You know, we have such a great programmers here because, you know, need to sort of like do them out. Because what happens is, is we have so many, so much Midwestern values that we just, we’re, we’re, we’re going to go home, you know, but, but there’s no reason for people to move anywhere else. You know, we can create a culture here and that’s where we ‘ve been trying to go to see job. Well, the interesting parts that we’re doing is, you know, we first started with, with one practice, you know, we, one meeting a month, you know, and then, then we sort of expanded that. Now we have two meetings a month where one of them is essentially, you know, now we have an advanced track for people that are like, you know, bleeding edge technology type of deal. You know, and that’s where you get to see Elasticsearch. That’s where you get to see the new features of Spring. You know, we, we sort of have like a, like a sort of like a , we’ll call it sort of like an introductory track, where it’s, you know, intro to multi -training, intro to, you know, you know, how to, how to do unit testing, you know, and, and the idea is, you know, that if we have support and we have the bandwidth. We can start adding it. So we have enough people already, you know, in our group that there’s, there’s definitely different interests that we can target. Well, yeah, right now, Java is kind of gone. It’s still in the throes of that revolution of languages. And the JVM has always been multi, multi-lingual. Yeah. But now we’re looking at Scala. You know, we had a keynote here. Groovy. Yeah. We had Martin Odersky give a keynote here. Oh yeah, that’s right. So Scala is huge, Clojure, huge. And JRuby, of course, is still also, you know. Yeah. There’s some amazing work. And then the Android platform. Are you looking at some cross-pollination of ideas using like outreach with Ruby? Definitely. And that’s the other thing that we’re sort of trying to sort of seed in. You know, I mean, we’re, we’re not just doing Java anymore. We’re sort of trying to be more JVM driven. Right. And, and, and one of the things that we’re sort of experimenting. We’re sort of adding one or two. We’re taking one or two of our sessions in there and doing more of like a JVM, right. So, you know, if you’re Groovy, you know, or if you are doing Clojure. And, and, and we’re trying to see how those fit in if there ‘s interest. Because sometimes what happens is you as a Java developer don’t know. Oh gosh, I could have used Scala here. I could have used JRuby here, you know. Right. And, and what we’re trying to do is sort of like say, hey, it’s not just about Java. You know, there’s, you have choices. Right. And, and, you know, just you can be aware of them and how you can use them in your daily work. Yeah. Java becomes a language on the Java. Yeah. On the JVM, right. But I mean, yeah. In all seriousness, some of these languages are, are so polished that they stand on their own. Yeah. You know, right beside Java as, as a first class citizen on , on, on the JVM. So, you know, it, it, it sounds like there’s like the world is your, is your home. The world is your, is your oyster for, for Java developers right now. If you know how to, if you already understand the fundamentals of the JVM and JARS and that infrastructure, you can do a lot. No, and that’s, and that’s the fun part is, is, is, it’s, if you’re a Java developer, it’s a great time to be one. Because, you know, you can, you can just sit down, look at it, and play with all the other stuff that is coming out. You know, even other languages like, you know, like JRuby, which is JAR’s daughter, you know, he’s, he’s crazy. But, but, you know, it’s like, the work he does is great. You know, I mean, there’s, the, the work that is being done on the JVM itself, which is, sometimes people don’t understand, like, the JVM, the machinery that runs this, has like 20 years of the most brilliant minds just reporting on it. Right. You know, you’ve got Charlie Han, you’ve got, you’ve even got Gil Tenet, you know, you’ve got , which is the Eclipse founder. You know, they all have their own ideas. They always talk. They always figure out how to do things better so that, you know, if you’re a JVM user, you don’t have to. Right. And, and, and, you know, and that’s one of the other things , like, you know, what I wanted to say about our group is, is we’re trying to educate people about all these things. Right. So one of them is, is, look, there’s tons of choices for the JVM and you shouldn’t just look at Java as the only tool that you can have. But the other thing we’re doing is, is we’re training them or, or we’re trying to spread the word about what a JSR is, what the JCP, you know, our group is actually a member, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a participant, not a voting member, but a participant on the JCP process. Right. So, so what that means is, is we’re starting to have influence, you know, and, and the end goal of the Chicago Java User’s Group will be to one day, you know, look at the biggest ones is London and Brazil. Right. And, you know, and say, look guys, you know, we are representative. We are, you know, we actually make an influence on the language. Right. We, you know, we, with our group, we help shape the way Java looks in the future. So you’re even looking at beyond simply having a community come together and have a place to share it as a community. But also to help build a, a groundswell to be able to help become part of the future of the platform. Which is fun because the things that we’re doing is, is for example, we have sort of like this bi-weekly newsletter, right? And in this newsletter, we, we have like a professional’s corner, which is sort of breaking down like things like, this is the JSRs, this is the JCP, this is how you contribute. This is how, you know, these are the ones that seem interesting for us to contribute on. And we’re, we’re sort of carrying that with what Bob Palman is doing, which is getting the doers out, right? Right. There’s a lot of people that, you know, they love to like sit down and, and sort of like passively receive the information. And it’s great. But we also want to sort of like tailor out to who like the makers are. So, so like Bob is creating this, what is called the maker track, which is not so much as being on a lecture, but it’s almost, you can think about like hackathons, hack days, people that, you know, like want to sit down and type. Right. And so one of the great things we’re trying to do is we’re trying to say, hey, we know you’re out there, let’s get you in, you know, let’s get you get the language even better. You know, let’s, let’s make Chicago relevant, not just in terms of us being Java consumers, but in terms of shaping the history of Java. Right. And, and even with the open source landscape, I know that there are people that I’ve worked with here in Chicago that are creating their own platforms and tools on top of Java. One person I interviewed was Igor Polovoy. He’s created a whole suite of tools and now he’s building a , a consultancy on top of those tools. But, you know, people are doing stuff here in Chicago. Yes. You don’t have to go to wherever, you know, you know, wherever the guys that are creating Groovy or wherever they’re doing, I don’t know if that’s Chicago or somewhere else, but there’s people here in Chicago that are creating. Yeah. And working with Java and doing interesting things with the platform. And that’s what we want to hear about. I mean, we want to, we want to get them out and get them and give them a stage for them to say, Hey, this is happening here and just take notes. Right. Right. Yeah. That this is a rich community. It isn’t just a bunch of people who report in, punch in, punch out. No. And that’s, and that’s what we’re trying to, you know, I mean that, that’s the reason why, why, you know, CJUK is there now. It’s like, we’re trying to spread the word and we try to make the community here, you know, not just big, but influential. So if I go on meetup.com, I’ll be able to find, if I search Chicago Java. Yeah. Yeah. We should be the first thing, you know, like the Chicago Java Research Group, CJUK. Our website is cjug.org. C-J-U-G.org. Yeah. Okay. Great. And then, yeah, we’re on Meetup. So, you know, sign up. Come on. We want to get, our goal is to get to 1500 people in Meetup by the end of the year. So. Oh, okay. Great. All right. Well then go sign up. Thank you very much for taking the time to speak. Mike, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. That’s fine. User groups with lots to say. Interviews and more. No way. Sharing great ideas in the tech community. Fascinating conversations. A plethora of information. Find out for yourself today at ugtastic.com. Thank you.