EE4J Microprofile at JavaOne

[Andy Gumbrecht]

JavaOne is probably one event that everyone would like to attend at least once in a lifetime, so being able to attend is always viewed as a privilege by me.

This year was extremely busy, more so than usual. That's always a good thing! Having an opportunity to hang around the Eclipse booth to showcase and answer questions on Microprofile was the icing on the cake. 

I've been busy on other things for a quite a while (including co-writing a book on testing Microservices), so this was an opportunity to do some catch up before making a fool of myself in the booth - Don't twist my words, you know what I mean.

There was a steady flow of 'customers' that were interested in Microprofile, but also several that were still hardcoded in thinking that Eclipse is just the IDE. I've been around ASF OSS for quite a while now, so it was quite easy to get visitors pointed in the right direction on Eclipse and the foundation aspect. It was kind of fun seeing that lightbulb appear over peoples heads.

I received the impression that quite a few people were coming along thinking that Microprofile is an entirely new application server. It wasn't too hard to convey that it is actually a collaboration between multiple vendors to standardize the way we, the EE vendors, do Microservices. I think we, again the vendors more than Eclipse, need to get that proper message across better.

I'd like to thank Stephanie Swart‏ @stephaniejswart for her Eclipse Foundation enthusiasm during my stints at the booth, and I'd like to feel that both of us made a good impression on guests arriving for a chat.

I just had a simple rolling google slides demo on screen, but wasn't initially aware that I'd need to bring a Laptop along to the Eclipse booth - Quickly rectified that issue! This kind of demo worked well, as trying to demo code to multiple viewers would not have been easy. So most of my work revolved around explaining in depth why and how Microprofile came to be, and where we are going.

There is definitely a buzz in the air around Microprofile, so it seems that everyone involved is doing a good job. Well done to all involved. A Huge pat on the back. The EE4J spin is probably going to overwhelm us all for a while, but I really think that we will be able to ride along, if not on top, of it. All very exciting!

Thank you Eclipse Foundation for hosting Microprofile, and thank you Tomitribe for placing your trust in me. Wishing everyone a great day, every day.

Andy Gumbrecht