
Quarkus gRPC, OpenTelemetry, and the LGTM Stack
28/12/2025 | 56 mins.
An airhacks.fm conversation with Ales Justin (@alesj) about: Slovenian Christmas traditions, career journey from Bitcoin to Strimzi to quarkus development, Quarkus gRPC implementation using Google's legacy gRPC versus native Vert.x-based gRPC server, plans to make Vert.x gRPC the default in Quarkus with Vert.x 5, gRPC transcoding and gRPC-web browser support coming with new Vert.x version, OpenTelemetry integration in Quarkus with Bruno Baptista leading the effort, LGTM container image from Grafana containing Loki Grafana Tempo and Mimir for observability testing, Quarkus observability dev services providing out-of-the-box Grafana dashboards, custom Grafana dashboard configuration support in Quarkus applications, evolution from MicroProfile Metrics to micrometer to OpenTelemetry as the preferred standard, Protocol Buffers (protobuf) version migration challenges from proto 3 to proto 4 breaking Pulsar integration, WebAssembly-based protoc compiler replacing platform-specific binaries reducing dependency size from 100MB to 2MB, gRPC service development in Quarkus using GRPCService annotation and generated classes, gRPC client injection using GRPCClient annotation similar to REST client pattern, sharing protobuf definitions between projects using Git submodules for source code sharing, gRPC bidirectional streaming support in Quarkus, OpenTelemetry spans attributes and events for business and technical observability, gRPC interceptors for server and client telemetry instrumentation, VictoriaMetrics as Prometheus-compatible alternative with push-based metrics, OpenTelemetry logging support in Quarkus, OpenBlend Slovenia Java conference history from Java Blend to Oracle partnership, conference details with 400-450 attendees at Slovenian Adriatic coast in late May Ales Justin on twitter: @alesj

How PowerMock Happened
20/12/2025 | 1h 6 mins.
An airhacks.fm conversation with Johan Haleby (@johanhaleby) about: first computer experience with Commodore C64 and typing Basic programs from instruction manuals, early gaming experiences and interest in understanding load commands, transition to Amiga 500 Plus for demo scene scripting and composition, moving to PC era with 486 SX25 and four megabytes of RAM, learning Turbo Pascal and creating 2D Super Mario-inspired games, experimenting with inline assembler in Pascal and reading "The Art of Assembly Programming", reverse engineering games using Win32 disassembler to bypass license checks, studying computer science at Blekinge and Lund University in Sweden, first job at JayWay consultancy firm working on IKEA project in 2005, early adoption of Spring framework and automated testing practices, comparison of old-style EJB with heavy XML configuration versus Spring's lightweight approach, the evolution from XML-based configuration to annotation-based Java EE 5 and 6, creating PowerMock with colleague Jan Kronqvist to mock static methods and final classes, using asm and JavaAssist for bytecode manipulation instead of AspectJ, implementing custom class loaders where each JUnit method executed in different class loader, deep clone module for cloning object graphs between class loaders, tight coupling challenges between PowerMock and Mockito/EasyMock/JUnit versions, transition from EasyMock's record-replay pattern to Mockito's when-then approach, modern preference for avoiding mocks and testing against real cloud environments, optimizing for fast CI/CD pipelines rather than local simulation, structuring code to separate infrastructure concerns from pure business logic, using Java Records as pure data carriers versus adding behavior to records, Clojure-inspired philosophy of decoupling state from behavior and identity, Rich Hickey's "Simple Made Easy" talk and definitions of simple versus easy, multi-methods in functional languages as alternative to polymorphism, domain modeling example with network devices and fiber channel connections, benefits of object-oriented polymorphism for transparent persistence and simple code, avoiding religious adherence to patterns in favor of pragmatic solutions, Maven's stability and opinionated approach versus Gradle's flexibility, reducing external dependencies and Maven plugins in favor of CI/CD automation, the NPM ecosystem's over-modularization compared to Java's more reasonable approach, decline of OSGi hype and return to simpler monolithic architectures, Johan's current work on Occurrent Event Sourcing library and cloud events Johan Haleby on twitter: @johanhaleby

From Energy Sector to Cape Dwarf
14/12/2025 | 1h 15 mins.
An airhacks.fm conversation with Ales Justin (@alesj) about: Early computing experiences with spectrum 48ZX and game development in Yugoslavia, progression from Basic to Pascal to C/C++ and eventually Java, mathematics education and its application to programming, working on energy consumption analysis applications for Slovenian companies, transitioning from a big IT company to a startup focusing on energy sector software, implementing Spring deployer for JBoss and contributing to open source, joining JBoss/Red Hat after impressing Bill Burke and Mark Fleury with Spring-JBoss integration, working on JBoss microcontainer with Adrian Brock and emphasis on precise testing, development of CapeDwarf as a JBoss implementation of Google App Engine APIs, collaboration with Google on TCK (Technology Compatibility Kit) development, solving concurrency bugs for a billion-dollar kitten app company using Cape Dwarf clustering, transition to cloud technologies with kubernetes and openshift integration, brief departure to work on cryptocurrency exchange using Spring Boot and Kafka, experiencing and solving Kafka / Strimzi issues on Google Cloud Platform, returning to Red Hat to work on Strimzi and eventually quarkus, focus on runtime systems and reactive programming with grpc and observability, importance of open source contribution and community engagement, evolution from monolithic application servers to cloud-native microservices architecture Ales Justin on twitter: @alesj

Building Software for Chemistry Labs with Java
10/12/2025 | 58 mins.
An airhacks.fm conversation with Stanislav Bashkyrtsev (@sbashkirtsev) about: scientific software for chemists and drug discovery, peaksel flagship software for analyzing mass spectrometer data, parsing binary instrument formats up to gigabytes in size, mass spectrometry measuring molecular weights using electric fields and detectors, daltons as mass units, isotope patterns for molecule identification, storing experimental data in PostgreSQL with potential big data challenges, S3 storage solutions, drug discovery process from hit identification to molecule modifications, molecular libraries and combinatorial chemistry, enumeration of molecular structures in computers, synthesis reactions mixing reactants with solvents and various conditions, liquid handlers and laboratory automation challenges, return on investment issues in early drug discovery automation, lab of the future concepts, Molbrett product combining excalidraw with chemical structure drawing capabilities, SMILES format for representing molecular structures as strings, graph-based molecular formats storing atom connections and bond types, 2D vs 3D molecular visualization preferences, Meve centralized event system for tracking molecular experiments across different software systems, ETL processes for data integration, Crystalline software for documenting protein crystallography experiments, protein structure determination using X-ray crystallography, Synchrotron facilities for high-energy X-ray generation, crystal growing conditions and documentation, fishing crystals with microscope and lasso wands, liquid nitrogen cooling for crystal preservation, Java backend, JavaScript frontend, minimal dependencies approach, six-person team structure, sponsorship business model for open source scientific software development, free updates for sponsors, subscription model for non-sponsors, checkout: https://elsci.io Stanislav Bashkyrtsev on twitter: @sbashkirtsev

How to Kill a Fish
28/11/2025 | 55 mins.
An airhacks.fm conversation with Ondrej Mihalyi (@OndroMih) about: OmniFish company founding with former Payara employees, Arjan Tijms as Jakarta EE Security lead and Jakarta EE 10 coordinator, David Matejczyk as Glassfish project lead and main contributor, OmniFish as the main maintainer and driver of GlassFish development, GlassFish optimization and bug fixes, embedded GlassFish improvements for command-line execution, comparison with Payara Micro, Slovak and Czech Christmas traditions including cemetery visits on Christmas Eve, traditional Christmas cookies like medovník (honey cookies) and perník, carp preparation for Christmas dinner with potato salad variations, fish scales tradition for wealth, Jakarta EE stability and backward compatibility over 15 years, migration from Java EE to Jakarta EE namespace changes, comparison between Jakarta EE and Spring regarding XML configuration history, Convention over Configuration in Java EE 5 and 6, WebSphere and WebLogic legacy issues, GlassFish as reference implementation advantages, runtime vs application server distinction, JSON-P usage for serverless lambda events, MicroProfile Health clean room implementation, Piranha experimental framework with new Servlet container implementation, AI and LLMs excellent knowledge of Jakarta EE specifications, no hallucinations when generating Jakarta EE code, separation of runtime and application deployment Ondrej Mihalyi on twitter: @OndroMih



airhacks.fm podcast with adam bien