Talks

Besides writing software, both for fun and for profit, I also regularly speak at conferences and meetups. My full talk portfolio is listed below. Contents and titles vary slighlty over time, as I’m always seeking to improve the contents. If you feel that one of these talks fits in your event theme or schedule, feel free to reach out! I’m particularly passionate to speak about open source, Java and software architecture.

Please note that I’ve marked some talks as “retired”. There can be various reasons for that: the content may be outdated, the topic may no longer be relevant. Or maybe it is just me struggling be enthousiastic about it anymore. I’ve included them for reference, but prefer to no longer deliver those talks.


Accelerating Maven Builds: From Snail's Pace to Rocket Speed #

Are you tired of watching Maven builds crawl at a snail’s pace, wasting precious development time? Spending too much time at the coffee machine, or fighting battles with wooden swords under the excuse “my code’s compiling”?

Join us to learn how to supercharge your Maven build! We’ll cover three main mechanisms that you can apply in your project. Learn how each speeds up your build, when they provide the biggest gains, and what pitfalls await.

So take the next step in boosting your developer productivity by learning practical tips to decrease context switching and increase development speed and feedback cycle. Your journey from snail’s pace to rocket speed begins today!

ConferenceDate
JCon EuropeMay 15, 2024
with Benjamin Marwell
JSpringJun 13, 2024

Release your creations into the world with JReleaser! 🚀 #

As a developer, you’ve been getting dependencies and applications from places like Maven Central, Homebrew and Chocolatey. Have you ever wondered how you can add your own creations to those packagers and repositories? Wouldn’t that be cool?!? Anyone worldwide being able to install your CLI or use your library with the tools they already use?

In this talk, we’ll show you just how fast and easy it can be to do just that! We’ll show you practical examples, like sharing a CLI app through Homebrew or publishing your library on Maven Central while announcing it on social media, all using JReleaser! After this talk, you’ll have learned exactly what this free Open Source tool has to offer and you’ll know why we are so excited to tell you about it!

So strap on your jetpack and join us as we show you how to package, publish, release and announce your creations at the speed of light!

ConferenceDate
Devoxx UKMay 9, 2024
with Tom Cools
Devoxx   Oct 2, 2023
with Tom Cools

Revival of the 'Boring' Webapps #

So, your application needs a web interface. Looking at today’s trends, you might think JavaScript frameworks are reigning in the realm: React, Vue, Angular and many more. On the language side, JavaScript got company from TypeScript, Web Assembly and even C#.

But it’s not all single-page applications that glitter! Of course, a single-page app delivers highly dynamic and interactive user interfaces, but at what expense? What if we revisited some of the ages past, when the server generated our web pages? Would that still be an option today, and what benefits would that bring us? If we would choose that, what approaches do we have, and how do they compare? And how can we satisfy the ever-changing requirements of users for more interaction and dynamic behaviours?

Join me on a trip down memory lane so that we can appreciate ‘boring’ web applications again. We’ll investigate today’s options for keeping things simple. Of course, we’ll see the contestants in action. This doesn’t have to be boring, after all…

ConferenceDate
Not yet scheduled or given.

[ This Could've Been Your Spot ] #

Yes, you’ve read that correctly - this talk and this stage could’ve been yours. You’re wondering how to make that happen? I’ll take you to the wonderful world of “call for papers”, “abstracts” and acceptance processes.

You might have reasons why you think you’re not up to this. But let’s see whether those excuses are genuine or if we can eliminate them.

ConferenceDate
Not yet scheduled or given.

Five ways open source will slow you down #

Software is changing the world - and even other planets. An ever-growing part of software is “open source”. But it hasn’t always been that way! And “doing something open source” is definitely no guarantee for success. There are numerous ways in which you can use open source software and be worse off than if you did not.

Join me in this talk to find out how not to leverage open source software in your organisation and your projects. Find out why reading the documentation may not always be your best bet, or how a workaround may eventually work against you. By investigating 5 ways in which you can fail, we can learn valuable lessons on what to do instead.

ConferenceDate
Bitbash 2024Jan 27, 2024
J-Fall   Nov 9, 2023
DevnexusApr 5, 2023

What's cooking in Maven? #

It’s been over 10 years since Maven 3 saw the light, bringing initial multi-module support. Later releases brought a lot of improvements, bug fixes, and of course coloured output.

But the Maven community hasn’t been resting on their laurels. A lot of effort has gone into the future of Maven. You may have heard about Maven 4, Maven Wrapper, or Maven Daemon. Why should you care? And how will it change the way you use Maven? I will show you by using the latest snapshot builds of Maven - time will tell if that’s a brave or a stupid idea…

Join me to find out what the future of Maven has for you!

ConferenceDate
Devoxx UKMay 8, 2024
DevnexusApr 6, 2023
DubJUGFeb 28, 2023
JakartaOne   Dec 6, 2022
J-Fall   Nov 3, 2022
Devoxx   Oct 13, 2022
JavaZone   Sep 7, 2022
Devoxx FR   Apr 21, 2022

Making Maven Marvellous #

Have you ever used Maven, ran into a bug and thought: “How on earth can a project this old have this bug?”. Then join this session! Maven, although a well-known and well-trusted project, is run by a relatively small bunch of people. There’s simply more work to do than these people can do!

So instead of getting angry, or looking for alternatives, you can contribute to Maven yourself and work on making it even better. Join us on our journey from “how on earth” to “works like heaven”. We’ll discuss how we did it, what we did, and most importantly: how you can start contributing to Maven as well!

As you walk out of the room, better reserve some time in your calendar to start working on that bug ;-).

ConferenceDate
DevnexusApr 13, 2022
with Giovanni van der Schelde
Java.IL   Dec 22, 2021
with Martin Kanters
JavaZone   Dec 8, 2021
with Martin Kanters
J-Fall   Nov 4, 2020
with Martin Kanters

Dapr: Dinosaur or Developer's Dream? #

Dapr is a cloud-native platform that aims to simplify cloud-native application development. It lets you abstract your distributed architecture from the underlying infrastructure that powers it. Forget about Kafka, RabbitMQ or any cloud-specific product: you’re talking with a pub/sub broker. Let Dapr take care of how it works. Want to switch later? Sure, no problem!

This may sound familiar… Wasn’t Jakarta EE supposed to solve these kinds of issues, too? Maybe, Dapr is just the new J2EE application server? Or will it change the way we develop distributed solutions? Join me in this talk to find out if we’re looking at a dinosaur in a fancy suit, or a developer’s dream.

ConferenceDate
JConf.devSep 27, 2022
JBCNConf   Jul 19, 2022
Oracle Groundbreakers APAC virtual tourDec 3, 2021
J-Fall   Nov 4, 2021

Building distributed applications with Dapr #

Dapr is an open-source, event-driven, portable runtime for distributed applications. It provides building blocks to make it easy for developers to build resilient microservice applications using a variety of languages and frameworks.

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to turn a sample blocking, REST-based application landscape into a resilient, event-driven architecture. Using step-by-step assignments, we’ll cover a large set of Dapr building blocks, and you’ll learn the benefits and drawbacks of using Dapr.

ConferenceDate
DaprConOct 20, 2021

React in 40/45/50 minutes #

You’ve heard about React, the JavaScript library for building web applications? And you’re wondering how to use it beyond the “Hello, World” stage? Then this talk is for you! Join me in an action-packed session full of live code examples where we’ll discover how you can use React to build the hottest web applications while keeping your head cool.

When you leave the room, you’ll know enough to build real-world web applications!

ConferenceDate
DubJUGFeb 28, 2023
Voxxed Days RomaniaOct 22, 2021
JCON   Oct 7, 2021
Bucharest Software Craftsmanship Comm.   Jun 22, 2021
JNation   Jun 16, 2021
OpenValue meetupMar 10, 2020
Jfokus   Feb 4, 2020
DevnexusFeb 21, 2020

SSL/TLS for Mortals #

Using SSL/TLS the right way is often a big hurdle for developers. We prefer to have that one colleague perform “something with certificates” because he/she knows how that works. But what if “that one colleague” is enjoying their vacation and something goes wrong with the certificates?

In this session, we’ll take a close look at secure communication at the transport level. Starting with what exactly SSL and TLS is, we’ll dive into public/private keys, and signing. We’ll also learn what all this has to do with an unfortunate Dutch notary. Of course, there’ll be plenty of practical tips & tricks, as well as demos.

Attend this session to become “that one colleague”!

ConferenceDate
Devoxx UK   Nov 1, 2021
JavaLandMar 16, 2021
Oracle Groundbreakers EMEA virtual tour   Oct 6, 2020
UtrechtJUGSep 28, 2020
Devoxx   Nov 7, 2019
J-Fall   Nov 8, 2018
GOTO Berlin   Oct 31, 2018
JavaZone   Sep 13, 2018
JAX '18Apr 25, 2018
Devoxx FR   Apr 19, 2018
DevnexusFeb 23, 2018
JavaOneOct 4, 2017
Voxxed Days LU   Jun 22, 2017

Beware of Survivorship Bias! #

Most talks on a typical conference schedule contain success stories of technology. This could lead to survivorship bias. Survivorship bias causes you to draw false conclusions because you mostly heard about successes, but hardly ever about failures. Yet failures provide us with lots of valuable knowledge: when not to apply a certain technique, pattern or process.

So no success stories in this talk! Just some ‘silver bullets’ we tried to use to solve our problems, but turned out to be Very Bad Ideas™. We’ll share how survivorship bias can easily influence your ideas and cloud your judgement.

After attending this talk you’ll be more aware of survivorship bias and what you can do to keep your head cool, no matter how many ‘silver bullets’ are fired at you.

ConferenceDate
DevnexusApr 10, 2024
with Hanno Embregts
JCon Europe   Jun 20, 2023
with Hanno Embregts
J-Fall   Oct 31, 2019
with Hanno Embregts

Building a DSL with GraalVM # (retired)

GraalVM is a virtual machine that can run many languages on top of the Java Virtual Machine. It comes with support for JavaScript, Ruby, Python… But what if you’re building a DSL, or your language is not listed? Fear not!

In this session we’ll discover what it takes to run another language in GraalVM. Using GraalVM, we don’t only get a fast runtime, but we’ll also get great tool support. With Brainfuck as an example, we’ll see how we can run guest languages inside Java applications. It might not bring us profit, but at least it will bring some fun.

ConferenceDate
Oracle Groundbreakers APAC virtual tourOct 19, 2020
javaBin   May 12, 2020
Oracle Code OneSep 19, 2019
Full Stack AntwerpJul 31, 2019
Devoxx PL   Jun 26, 2019
Voxxed Days LU   Jun 21, 2019

Mastering Microservices with Kong # (retired)

When architecting microservice solutions, you’ll often find yourself struggling with cross-cutting concerns. Think security, rate limiting, access control, monitoring, location-aware routing… Things can quickly become a nightmare.

The API Gateway pattern can help you solve such problems in an elegant and uniform way. Using Kong, an open source product, you can get started today. In this session we’ll look at the why and how of this approach.

Disclaimer: This presentation may include live coding. No humans or animals will be hurt during the process.

ConferenceDate
Devoxx UK   May 9, 2019
CodeMotionApr 3, 2019

How To Stay Responsive With 400 Backends # (retired)

In these days of web scale and microservices, gracefully handling faulty or crashing web services becomes increasingly important. As long as your application uses just a handful of such external systems, there’s no problem. But what if you have hundreds of them? How will you prevent your application from the negative effects of inevitable incidental crashes or timeouts when contacting other systems?

In this talk, we’ll take a real-world case from a web scale system. This system is targeted at 7 million users and has around 400 heterogeneous external integrations. Akka and Scala power a system that is capable of running smoothly even when some of these services might not be so stable. 

ConferenceDate
JVMCONJan 30, 2018
JBCNConf   Jun 20, 2017

Building web applications with React # (retired)

Getting started with React is easy, but building real-world applications can be a bit harder. How do you go beyond the “Hello, World” stage to build applications that are ready for prime time?

In this workshop we’ll cover modern JavaScript, “thinking the React way”, interacting with data sources, error handling and many more topics. We’ll use this to build a web application that is ready to shine. As a bonus, you’ll learn some of the React internals that enable you to write better applications.

ConferenceDate
JfokusFeb 3, 2020

Building cross-platform mobile apps with React Native # (retired)

There’s nothing more expensive than building the same thing twice. Yet that is what a lot of companies do when they publish a mobile app: they build one for Android and one for iOS. But wait, you don’t have to! Using React Native, you can build one mobile app for both platforms from one code base using a language you’re probably already familiar with - JavaScript.

In this session, we’ll discuss building a simple word game app for both iOS and Android. First, we’ll dive into how React Native works and how to build a basic application. Then, we’ll dive into the Redux framework, which helps us building predictable state and allows for great testability of our application. Finally, we look at how the two integrate and how the game is built.

ConferenceDate
DevoxxNov 7, 2017
JFokus   Feb 8, 2017

Outsmarting the Smart Meter # (retired)

Starting 2014, all Dutch households are receiving a “smart meter” to replace their old meter systems for electricity and gas. They’re called “smart”, but are they really? Most meters just send their data to a central point using GPRS. Using third party services, consumers can get an insight in their energy usage.

But we’re technicians, we can build something better ourselves. All it takes is a prefab cable (or some soldering), code, patience and a beer. Using Scala plus Akka for the backend, TypeScript plus React for the frontend and Websockets for communication you can build your own energy dashboard. En passant, we might even see a little Akka stream dropping by.

Attend this session to discover how to outsmart your Smart Meter!

ConferenceDate
Reactive AmsterdamSep 25, 2018
Utrecht JUG   Oct 27, 2017
JFokusFeb 8, 2017
Brabant.scalaJul 7, 2016
JavaCro '16May 19, 2016

ELK: BigData for DevOps # (retired)

Big Data is often related to companies like Google, Facebook or Twitter. Indeed, 500 bilion tweets a day, 1,3 billion active Facebook users or 30 billion web pages to search, we’re talking ‘Big Data’. Many smaller companies have Big Data, too, without knowing it: application log files.

This talk discusses how to use Elasticsearch, Logstash and Kibana to gain insight in these data. Apart from the general picture, it covers a detailed walk-through of how to configure Logstash for filtering sensitive data from log files. It also covers a real-world example at a major Dutch bank, including common pit falls, best practices and lessons learned.

After attending this session you will be able to leverage the power of the ELK stack for your own application. Even for smaller companies and applications, a lot of knowledge can be gained from proper insight in your production environment.

ConferenceDate
JBCNConfJun 18, 2016
JavaCro '16May 19, 2016
Javantura v3   Feb 20, 2016
ConFESS_2015   Apr 14, 2015