This is the first in a short series of speaker profiles for JavaOne 2026 in Redwood Shores, California, March 17-19. Get early bird pricing until February 9, and for a limited time, take advantage of a $50 discount by using this code at checkout: J12026DCP. Register. Sessions.
In this conversation, Jim Grisanzio from Java Developer Relations talks with Jeanne Boyarsky, a Java developer, an author, and a Java Champion based in New York City. Jeanne previews her JavaOne session, which will be a Hands on Lab for Java 25 certification. Previously, Jeanne was a guest on Duke's Corner in January 2024: Jeanne Boyarsky on Java, Learning, and Contributing.
Preparing for Java 25 Certification
Jeanne will be running a hands-on lab about Java 25Â and getting ready for the certification: Becoming One of the First Java 25 Certified Developers in the World (or Learning New Features). The session will cover features added to the language from Java 17 to Java 25. Although the certification has not been announced yet, Jeanne is already preparing for it. "You can be one of the first people in the world to be certified if you come to my talk and learn about it and are ready when the test comes out," she says.
The lab will walk through tricky questions and edge cases featuring new functionality, with coding practice to explore the features directly. Even if you are not planning to take the certification test, the lab provides a good way to learn about the new features. The session is designed for beginners with one to three years of experience.
Top Features in Java 25
Several features particularly excite Jeanne. She highlights scoped values, which she describes as "a good jump from thread local in order to be able to share code in a nice, safe, contained way." She also appreciates unnamed variables and unnamed patterns because developers no longer need to use annotations to suppress warnings for unused variables. "You can just use an underscore," she says.
Jeanne is particularly interested in stream gatherers because streams are one of her favorite features in Java overall. She was excited when stream gatherers were in preview, and now that they are officially released, she can use them in her job. "Nice that the excitement hasn't worn off, right?"
Among the new features, Jeanne is especially interested in the new main method, as described in JEP 495: Simple Source Files and Instance Main Methods. "I'm super, super, super excited about the new main methods where you don't need a class and you don't need the whole static void mess," she says. This change makes writing code more succinct.
Making Java Accessible to Students
This change in how Java handles the main method enables new developers to learn Java faster. Jeanne volunteers at a high school teaching kids how to code in Java. In the past, teachers had to tell students: "Alright, public class foo, public static void. Don't worry about what any of that means. We'll tell you later."Â But Jeanne says that curious kids would ask what it meant, and teachers could only say that comes later.
Now, students start with void main, braces, and IO print line. "It's obvious what everything does," Jeanne says. Void means it does not return anything, which makes sense to students. They can even use the Java Playground and start with just IO print line. When they move to the command line or an IDE, they only need the void main part without discussing the word class until they are ready to learn about classes and objects.
"It makes their first impression of the language so much better, and it makes it so much faster and easier for them to get started," Jeanne says. She particularly appreciates the Java Playground because students do not need anything installed on their computers to start. They can write print lines, loops, and control structures, and by the time teachers ask them to install something, they are already invested in programming. "It's fun."
Jeanne calls the Java Playground "awesome" and says it's a "really nice utility" even for experienced developers. She uses it herself for quick tests when she does not want to open an IDE.
JavaOne on Oracle's Campus
When asked about JavaOne, Jeanne describes the conference as moving to California last year, just outside San Francisco on Oracle's campus. "The weather was great, which is awesome because I live in New York City. There's snow outside right now," she laughs.
The venue particularly impressed her. "It was nice because it was on Oracle's campus. You got a feel for it. It was pretty. There was a lake. There was a lot of areas to connect with people inside and outside." The conference was held largely in one building, with lunch in another building nearby, which made it easy to engage people repeatedly. "Even if you don't know people, the fact that they're at JavaOne means they're interested in Java. So, you can go over to anyone and introduce yourself."
One of Jeanne's favorite memories from a previous JavaOne was meeting Duke and seeing her book in the Java bookstore.
Advice for Students
When asked for advice for students learning computer science, Jeanne recommends learning the fundamentals while using AI to help. "Rather than using AI to write the code, have it give you practice questions or do code review or ideas of projects," she suggests.
Students also often ask what professional developers do daily. Her answer provides a realistic picture of professional software development. "Every day is a little bit different, but most days include a mix of meetings, working with my coworkers, code reviews, writing code, now with AI," she says. Problem solving takes many forms, from performance questions like "Why is this slow?" to security concerns about making systems more secure.
A significant part of her role involves understanding what users actually need. "A lot of the time users ask for what they think they want and not what they actually want," Jeanne says. Through user interviews, she works to understand what they are trying to accomplish, which often leads to better solutions than what they initially requested. "So not just building what you're told is a huge thing, especially as you become more senior in your career," she says. The goal is to make users productive and happy, not just to code.
Technology keeps changing, and for Jeanne, that constant evolution makes the work fun. She has embraced AI tools as coding assistants, using them for pair programming, generating tests, and suggesting next steps. When her team piloted coding assistants, they focused on choosing a tool rather than waiting for the perfect tool. "The important thing is to get a tool and get people going and using it and being more productive," she says. The learning curve is not high, and the tools pay for themselves almost immediately.
However, Jeanne says that it's important to understand what you are doing rather than using AI to replace that understanding. "It's about understanding what you're doing and not using the AI to replace it because at least with the coding assistance, it's right 90, 95% of the time," she says. She talked about an example of asking AI to generate a regular expression while pairing with a junior programmer. The AI started writing it properly but then made an error. "I noticed it right away because I know what correct is," she says. After giving it another prompt with a hint, it produced the correct result. Without knowing what correct looks like, developers cannot effectively verify and fix AI-generated code.
The AI Hype Cycle
Regarding concerns about AI making developers obsolete, Jeanne is pragmatic. "I've heard that enough times that I'm a little skeptical," she says, adding that this is the third or fourth time some technology has been predicted to take all the jobs. Instead, she sees AI as enabling developers to accomplish more and make users happier. She has a big backlog "that goes on forever." She says it would be great if we could get more of it done and in the hands of customers.
"I think we're at that phase in the hype cycle for AI where people are talking about AI like it solves all your problems, [but] it solves some of your problems. But because there's less acknowledgement of the ones it doesn't solve, it's easier to have that skepticism." When asked if AI represents a paradigm shift or just the latest tool, she responds: "Right now, I think it's the latest tool, but I do think we're going to get to the point where we're programming at a higher level."
Connect with Jeanne: X, LinkedIn, Bluesky
Connect with Jim: X, LinkedIn
Duke's Corner Java Podcast: Libsyn
New Zealand