1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,520
Hey everyone, this week we have one of our interviews with a SpringOne Platform speaker

2
00:00:04,520 --> 00:00:09,040
where you get to not only hear a little bit of what they'll be talking about, or preview if you

3
00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:14,240
will, but some about themselves as well. Now we have SpringOne Platform coming up in my hometown,

4
00:00:14,540 --> 00:00:19,860
Austin, Texas, October 7th to 10th. Now if you're listening in the future, this is in 2019.

5
00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:25,580
Sorry if you missed it. You have to write a letter to me, tell me how 2025 is doing.

6
00:00:25,580 --> 00:00:30,940
Always curious. Anyhow, you should take a look and register for it. If you register before

7
00:00:30,940 --> 00:00:37,020
August 20th, you'll get a nice discount from it. Otherwise, if you just go to springoneplatform.io,

8
00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:42,920
you can sign up for it and come see us in Austin. So with that, enjoy the interview.

9
00:00:43,580 --> 00:00:51,140
Hello everyone and welcome to this episode of Women of SpringOne Platform 2019. And we're

10
00:00:51,140 --> 00:00:57,580
speaking now with Olga Machacek-Charma, who is a member of the Spring team. And Olga, welcome

11
00:00:57,580 --> 00:01:04,300
to this interview and this conversation. If you would, please introduce yourself to our listeners.

12
00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:15,820
Hello. Yes. So I'm a senior software engineer at the Spring Cloud team. And I've worked as a

13
00:01:15,820 --> 00:01:27,400
software engineer in this team for nearly a year and in general for around four years now. And before,

14
00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:32,340
I also worked in the testing industry and as a quality assurance engineer.

15
00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:40,180
If you could kind of explain to our audience, how did you get into tech to begin with? How did the

16
00:01:40,180 --> 00:01:52,200
story of Olga start? If we could. Okay. So that was sort of a coincidence, a very lucky one at that. But

17
00:01:52,200 --> 00:02:05,100
I quite randomly, at some point, I ended up testing games, console games mostly. And yeah,

18
00:02:05,100 --> 00:02:11,860
that was sort of a coincidence because I never even really played games before being offered that

19
00:02:11,860 --> 00:02:21,240
job. So that was really unexpected. But then as I started the job, I really liked it. However,

20
00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:33,420
I liked more the industry than the games. So I later went on to test operating systems and also popular

21
00:02:33,420 --> 00:02:41,380
office suites and things like that. And I realized I really liked the industry. I wanted to know more. I

22
00:02:41,380 --> 00:02:49,120
wanted to know how the things were created, how it all worked underneath. So I started studying computer

23
00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:56,160
science. And of course, as I studied, I gained more skills when it comes to software design, software

24
00:02:56,160 --> 00:03:05,840
architecture. I started doing more technical things. I led a project of tests of data warehouse.

25
00:03:06,400 --> 00:03:14,240
Then I also worked as a quality assurance engineer in some other software projects. And then as I learned

26
00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:25,360
more at the university and I started coding and I got more interested also in computer engineering and more so

27
00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:33,920
in distributed systems, I started working as a software engineer. And as my interest grew in the topic of

28
00:03:33,920 --> 00:03:41,280
distributed software, distributed systems, microservices, and I also was very interested in working

29
00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:48,320
in open source and I contributed to open source projects wherever I could. It was sort of

30
00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:56,400
an interesting possibility for me when I saw the advertisement job offer for the Spring Cloud team.

31
00:03:56,400 --> 00:04:01,040
And I jumped on that because that was something that I really, really wanted to do.

32
00:04:02,320 --> 00:04:07,040
So that's more or less how it started and what led me to the current situation.

33
00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,800
Well, I think I speak for all of us in saying we're really glad, I'm really glad, especially that you did.

34
00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:19,760
I've gotten to know you over the last several months, last years, and really grateful for that opportunity.

35
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:26,640
With that kind of in mind, some of the things that brought you into tech, what do you love about coding,

36
00:04:26,640 --> 00:04:30,080
about your current position, about the stuff you're working on or anything?

37
00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:41,840
I really like seeing how we can make creating very complex systems easier.

38
00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:48,720
How we can, basically what Spring does, so removing all these repetitive things

39
00:04:49,280 --> 00:04:54,720
from software engineers and giving them tools so that they can build software easily.

40
00:04:54,720 --> 00:04:59,360
And I sort of got into software where people started splitting their monoliths

41
00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:07,360
and creating microservices and thinking how to end up with a system that is resilient.

42
00:05:08,080 --> 00:05:16,160
How to test this kind of system, how to make sure we don't have problems related to network latency,

43
00:05:17,280 --> 00:05:20,480
to our collaborating systems going down and so on.

44
00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:26,880
So I became very interested in this topic and this sort of led me to this team.

45
00:05:26,880 --> 00:05:33,520
And also I really like working in open source because you end up working with your end users.

46
00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:39,120
And there are a lot of ideas, there's a lot of discussions, there's a lot of creativity.

47
00:05:39,840 --> 00:05:46,960
And also this kind of work allows you to both have to spend some time in various things.

48
00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:56,080
So I would definitely spend a big part of my time coding and also fixing issues or adding some new features.

49
00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:59,920
But then we would spend some time as a team discussing new approaches

50
00:05:59,920 --> 00:06:06,160
and reading up on what is happening in this industry and trying to catch up on new trends.

51
00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:13,600
And then we would spend time interacting with our users, educating them on our projects and also getting inspired

52
00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:16,160
by what they're doing and collaborating with them.

53
00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:23,040
So I think what I really like about software is the possibility of building things.

54
00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:30,960
of just taking nothing and making a complex system out of it.

55
00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:32,960
That's the interesting thing for me.

56
00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:37,680
I think it's very creative and challenging and interesting in this way.

57
00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:41,360
It really is a creative discipline, isn't it?

58
00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:46,160
I think that's something that a lot of people who are outside of our field really don't understand,

59
00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:52,640
is that it takes a lot of engineering, it takes a lot of precision, but it also takes a lot of creativity

60
00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:56,480
to kind of bring all of that into being from nothingness.

61
00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:01,600
It is, but at the same time, what I like is that it's very specific.

62
00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:03,520
So there is no magic.

63
00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:09,920
When I first started working with software as a tester, it sort of all seemed like magic.

64
00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:15,440
And then as I studied computer science, I had this realization that there is no magic.

65
00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:21,040
That we sometimes can take weeks to understand why something is failing,

66
00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:24,240
but there is a reason and that's a beauty.

67
00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:30,000
So there is this junction of something that is creative, but at the same time,

68
00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:31,920
it is an engineering discipline.

69
00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:39,920
So it's very technical and there is sort of a certainty about what we are doing.

70
00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:44,560
And there is always a way to address an issue or improve something.

71
00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:49,120
And we are getting specific outcomes from what we do.

72
00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:54,080
Kind of a best of both worlds, or maybe I suppose if your perspective is the other way,

73
00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:58,160
it may be a worst of all worlds, but certainly, certainly never dull, never boring.

74
00:07:58,160 --> 00:07:59,840
Oh, never boring.

75
00:07:59,840 --> 00:08:06,720
Yeah, that's also a great thing that it's a, it's a discipline where you end up learning all the time.

76
00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:11,600
So you don't reach at a certain level of knowledge.

77
00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:19,760
And I guess all professions somehow have this notion, like if you are a doctor or a lawyer,

78
00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:23,280
you also need to educate yourself on the new and upcoming things.

79
00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:30,160
But in software engineering, the pace at which these new things come up is much greater.

80
00:08:30,160 --> 00:08:35,840
So it's more challenging, but at the same time, it's really fascinating and thrilling.

81
00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:50,800
And it also gives you a lot of possibilities to develop in different directions and learn in various disciplines within the software industry.

82
00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:56,960
Yeah. Now, as you're talking, as, as we're having this really cool conversation,

83
00:08:56,960 --> 00:09:05,040
actually, I hear a consistent thread, just as an, an observer, I hear quality, and I hear you,

84
00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:11,120
everything you do seems to revolve around creating a quality application, a quality system,

85
00:09:11,120 --> 00:09:17,280
building a quality API and interactions among components in that overarching system,

86
00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:21,840
which last year at SpringOne Platform, you presented about Spring Cloud Contract,

87
00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:24,720
which ties into that quite strongly, actually.

88
00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:28,160
So it's a very consistent theme, even over the, over time.

89
00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:32,320
How has your thinking changed on that in a year? Has it changed any at all?

90
00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:39,360
I wouldn't say my thinking has changed, but the project itself has evolved.

91
00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:50,000
So I guess all that we talked about last year is still true, but we have added quite a lot of things to Spring Cloud Contract.

92
00:09:50,000 --> 00:10:02,160
So I have added WebTest Client Support to allow people who want to work with WebFlux also use this for their project and also be able to leverage contracts.

93
00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:14,080
And then I have also added XML Support, which is, that was actually, I think the, one of the longest requested features.

94
00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:18,480
And we did, we really didn't want to edit.

95
00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:26,240
We were sort of thinking, okay, everybody will move on, nobody will use XML anymore very shortly.

96
00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:27,920
But yeah, that was not the case.

97
00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:32,480
And even though we think everyone should move, we also want to,

98
00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:36,400
I want to support these users that cannot.

99
00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:39,920
And so, so that's why I've, I've edited it.

100
00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:53,920
And then Martin has, Martin Dreishtag, he has done a lot of work around support for binary files and also fixing the support for YAML.

101
00:10:53,920 --> 00:11:00,400
So that you can now do everything that you could, before you could use Groovy DSL to write contracts.

102
00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:05,200
And then you could use YAML and a parity was introduced.

103
00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:09,440
So you could do practically the same with YAML as you could with Groovy files.

104
00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:19,920
And now just very recently this week, another colleague of ours team has merged Kotlin support for the Kotlin DSL.

105
00:11:20,560 --> 00:11:26,880
So yeah, the project, the premises of this project, our project are still the same, but we keep adding new features.

106
00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:30,720
We keep fixing bugs and it's definitely developing.

107
00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:36,160
And also we feel that there is a lot more interest.

108
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:42,240
So we we've spoken at some SpringOne tours about contract.

109
00:11:42,240 --> 00:11:49,520
We spoke, for example, in Amsterdam about this, and we've got a really big amount of questions after our presentation.

110
00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:51,440
So for a lot of people, it's still a new project.

111
00:11:51,440 --> 00:12:00,480
At the same time, we get more and more customers and among them also users and among them people from really

112
00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:06,160
big tech companies asking us about this project and wanting to work with it.

113
00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:12,640
So we are very happy that it's sort of gaining momentum and developing and getting more interest.

114
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:17,680
Yeah, no, I'm personally really excited about the expanded Kotlin support.

115
00:12:17,680 --> 00:12:26,720
And I know there are some folks who wax eloquently about XML and its virtues, even today, and probably will be in the next several years.

116
00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:30,640
I'm surprised there are that many people asking for YAML support, though.

117
00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:39,680
In some weird way, but I think it was more people asking not to not to have to have Groovy.

118
00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:47,920
And Martin and I, we were both very involved with the Groovy community for a long time.

119
00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:54,320
And we were happy to write this in Groovy, but we realized that it was not popular enough.

120
00:12:54,320 --> 00:13:01,680
And we wanted to provide a response that another technology that would do two things.

121
00:13:01,680 --> 00:13:07,360
So it would allow people to just write it in something else, but would also address the possibility

122
00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:12,080
of using contracts by people who are not in the JVM world at all.

123
00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:21,840
So we could imagine front-end people collaborating on contracts with the back-end team and the front-end team

124
00:13:21,840 --> 00:13:25,840
writing using code using different technologies such as JavaScript.

125
00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:31,440
And we decided that YAML would be something that everybody could use.

126
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:35,360
Yeah, when you put it like that, it makes perfect sense.

127
00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:37,520
So I can't argue with that.

128
00:13:37,520 --> 00:13:44,560
I can't say that I like formats where Y spaces are syntactic elements.

129
00:13:44,560 --> 00:13:45,920
I most certainly do not.

130
00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:51,520
But yeah, I think that because of its popularity, it was worth adding that.

131
00:13:51,520 --> 00:13:55,680
And Martin has a lot of work to make it all work together.

132
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:01,920
Yeah, it's funny something else you mentioned just kind of is tickling the back of my brain, too.

133
00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:06,160
Because so many times we assume, I mean, this is not a component.

134
00:14:06,160 --> 00:14:08,080
This is not an offering that is brand new.

135
00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:14,800
And yet, in some areas, it seems like this is many people's first exposure to Spring Cloud contract.

136
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:21,280
So I've long marveled at the fact that, and it's not necessarily that certain communities

137
00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:23,920
are behind the curve or ahead of the curve.

138
00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:29,120
It's just that, for whatever reason, their path hasn't taken them on to a collision course

139
00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:33,520
with a particular technology that can help solve a burning need that they have.

140
00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:38,880
And then when they find it, maybe it's early on in the product life cycle, if you want to call it that,

141
00:14:38,880 --> 00:14:43,840
when it may be when Spring Cloud contract is brand new, it's just being talked about for the first time.

142
00:14:44,400 --> 00:14:46,640
And maybe it's two or three years down the road.

143
00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:51,280
But whenever that introduction occurs, it's something new, it's something fresh.

144
00:14:51,280 --> 00:14:56,000
And for those of us who may have been aware of it for a while, it seems like, wow, where have you been?

145
00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:56,880
Where has this been?

146
00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:00,960
And it's just kind of a happy confluence of events at that point.

147
00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:07,920
So, yeah, it's kind of cool to see people getting excited about something that maybe you've gotten very accustomed to.

148
00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:13,040
I mean, how do you feel about that when you get that first light coming on behind somebody's eyes,

149
00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:14,240
when you talk about that?

150
00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:18,960
Well, we are very happy that people want to know more.

151
00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:27,360
And they want to know more about the contract testing in general and the issues related to that.

152
00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:32,560
And of course, obviously, there are various tools that allow you to do that.

153
00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:39,440
So we are opinionated and we do think our tool is a good implementation of that pattern.

154
00:15:39,920 --> 00:15:49,600
But a lot of people are still not familiar with the pattern itself and then with the available tools.

155
00:15:50,160 --> 00:16:00,640
And we are definitely happy that there is interest that after we give a talk, we get a lot of questions that people are actively participating

156
00:16:01,280 --> 00:16:13,120
in our Gitter channel, in the GitHub accounts, and we do get a lot of questions, but we also do get a lot of contributions, a lot of issue reports, a lot of pull requests.

157
00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:22,560
So there is a vibrant community behind this project and that makes us very happy because it means that it is being used and it is useful.

158
00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:25,920
Yeah, and community is key.

159
00:16:25,920 --> 00:16:27,440
I mean, that's why we do what we do.

160
00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:39,040
That's where we really see the best efforts and the best parts of all of our jobs kind of come together is that amazing Spring community, which kind of actually brings me to my next question.

161
00:16:39,760 --> 00:16:57,420
You're speaking this year on how to live in a post-Spring Cloud Netflix world, which is another kind of cool thing, quite frankly, because Spring Cloud Netflix has been such a key cornerstone to so many people's microservices architecture evolution, right?

162
00:16:57,440 --> 00:17:03,600
Especially when dealing, obviously when dealing with Spring in terms of making that transition.

163
00:17:03,600 --> 00:17:10,880
So what can we expect from that? How did you come to that topic and what are some things you want to share about that or will be sharing about that?

164
00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:34,720
Yeah. So what happened was Netflix, basically, with Spring Cloud, we had some other projects, but a lot of what we did was providing good integration for Spring Boot apps developers to integrate with tools that were provided by other open source actors.

165
00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:58,560
So a very popular contributor to open source is Netflix, and they created various extremely popular libraries such as Zool, Ribbon, Hystrix, and then the Spring Cloud team provided seamless integrations to use it easily with Spring Boot based applications and systems.

166
00:17:58,560 --> 00:18:19,600
However, at some point, Netflix decided to move some of these projects into maintenance and then to also switch from versions of these projects that had the Spring Cloud integration to new versions of some of these projects that were not backwards compatible.

167
00:18:20,560 --> 00:18:29,760
So some of these projects moved to new versions and other were put into maintenance mode.

168
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:41,600
The Spring Cloud team had to react to this and, well, we cannot provide support beyond the maintenance mode if the core library is in maintenance mode.

169
00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:49,760
So we also had to return to the community and let them know that we will now only maintain these projects.

170
00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:55,120
So we will fix bugs, but we will probably not add any new features.

171
00:18:55,120 --> 00:19:00,320
We might go over some peers, small peers that we get from the community, but that's about that.

172
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:07,040
And the Spring Cloud team had to provide their replacements for these projects so that the users

173
00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:17,440
can stop using those projects can stop using those projects and at the same time maintain the functionality or even have a better experience with the functionality.

174
00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:21,840
So the Spring Cloud team provided Spring Cloud Gateway.

175
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:26,960
We are working a colleague of mine, Ryan Baxter, and also with Spencer Gibb.

176
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:30,800
They're working on the circuit breaker implementation.

177
00:19:30,800 --> 00:19:37,280
That is an obstruction also allows to use various circuit breakers, not only hysterics.

178
00:19:37,920 --> 00:19:43,280
And then there has been some works regarding the load balancer.

179
00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:46,800
So a new reactive load balancer was provided.

180
00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:52,320
And then changes of this sort.

181
00:19:52,320 --> 00:20:07,840
So what I wanted to do in this presentation was to show people how you can take that old stack that was so popular and move it to the new one, maintaining the same applications, the same code and the same functionality.

182
00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:10,800
How to change these integration pieces.

183
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:24,880
So I am really happy that we managed to prepare that presentation because as we did that, we also were able to see where this transition already was seamless and where some more work was required.

184
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:35,200
And that, for example, made me start working on some improvements to our load balancer integration because we did have our own load balancer.

185
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:41,680
But what we didn't have was a client and also we didn't have a non-reactive client.

186
00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:48,800
So that's something I have worked on this month and the previous month, and that was already merged.

187
00:20:48,800 --> 00:21:00,240
And now also as part of the Hoxton release train, I will be working on removing ribbon and removing this Netflix maintenance more projects from our libraries.

188
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:16,640
So basically we wanted to make this presentation to show people how they can easily transition to new tools and maintain the same functionality or even have a better experience.

189
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:21,800
And it also allowed us to find some loopholes and address them.

190
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:24,660
And you bring up some good points.

191
00:21:24,660 --> 00:21:39,200
And one thing that always kind of fascinated me is that obviously Netflix did an amazing job with creating software and sharing it with the community, but they also had their own design goals, their own requirements that they had to meet.

192
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:57,880
And there were many times that there were just customers and community members who felt that they had absolute hard and fast requirements, knew they had absolute hard and fast requirements in their particular domain that weren't being fully addressed with some of the Netflix offerings.

193
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:15,640
First in mind is Zool and the direction that Netflix ended up taking with Zool and that kind of prompted us to maybe look at Gateway in terms of, hey, we can meet some of those requirements that are actually really valid requirements that maybe Netflix isn't under any pressing demand to meet with Zool.

194
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:21,320
And, of course, Ribbon, same thing versus our load balancer that we're actually evolving things into.

195
00:22:21,540 --> 00:22:32,000
We're trying to, in many ways, meet requirements that were left unfulfilled with the Netflix offering before, even before things were kind of put into maintenance mode or took a different direction.

196
00:22:32,420 --> 00:22:41,840
So that's something that I'm personally really excited about, and I'm excited to see you expanding on that and solving some of those real customer and community problems that have surfaced.

197
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:43,760
Absolutely.

198
00:22:44,180 --> 00:22:52,020
And also the input of Netflix and the impact they had on the industry was very big.

199
00:22:52,020 --> 00:23:00,580
And the tools, the Rotary, they were big changers, game changers in time when they were published.

200
00:23:00,940 --> 00:23:10,120
However, I think Netflix sort of wanted to switch more to concentrating on their own business concern.

201
00:23:10,300 --> 00:23:28,440
It's a huge company and we can see because they also publicly published different blog posts about that, that they decided to go with Spring for various and Spring Boot and Spring Cloud for various areas and that they covered on their own before.

202
00:23:29,260 --> 00:23:35,780
So they collaborate with us and we are very grateful for their inputs and suggestions.

203
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:48,160
Yeah, we were really happy that such a huge company like Netflix decided to switch to a lot of Spring, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud tools and published a blog about this.

204
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:58,960
Yeah, much respect and much admiration for Netflix and all they've done to help transform the industry and are still doing as we work with them and hopefully provide a very key part of that as well.

205
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:05,040
So we're coming up on Spring, which is my favorite time of Spring, which is my favorite time of the year, as you might imagine.

206
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:09,840
But what is your personal favorite thing about Spring Boot platform, Olga, if I could ask?

207
00:24:11,100 --> 00:24:11,540
Sure.

208
00:24:11,820 --> 00:24:24,620
So it's an awesome conference and there's a lot of knowledge and there's a lot of great talks, but for me personally, what I like most is the possibility to meet a lot of people face to face.

209
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:37,580
So to meet and discuss with and see what our users are doing and to talk to our customers and this is something that's really invaluable.

210
00:24:37,580 --> 00:24:55,720
We do a lot of meetings during Spring Boot platform, so we don't only present, we also meet with a lot of customers and we meet with a lot of users and we talk to them and they give us a lot of insights about the projects and it's really extremely valuable.

211
00:24:56,220 --> 00:25:07,500
And the second part is that the Spring team is fully remote, so we do not meet that often and it's a great opportunity for us all to meet.

212
00:25:07,580 --> 00:25:09,520
And work together as well.

213
00:25:11,120 --> 00:25:15,660
Yeah, we don't often get a chance to see everyone in the same spot.

214
00:25:15,780 --> 00:25:37,320
In fact, this is the big event and obviously you still have certain folks who have things come up or that they can't be there for one reason or another, but this is kind of the gathering point every year for all of this Spring team to get together and interact among ourselves and among the greater community, which is, I think it's just a win all the way around.

215
00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:48,420
Everybody gets to exchange ideas and direction and kind of find out if there are things that no one person or one team can ever think of everything.

216
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:58,780
So the more we all share knowledge, the smarter we all get and the better we can provide capabilities to the greater community that solve real pressing needs in better ways.

217
00:25:59,780 --> 00:26:00,740
Yes, that's true.

218
00:26:00,740 --> 00:26:01,320
Yes, that's true.

219
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:23,780
And it's, it's really very valuable to be able to meet different team members and also talk to people from various teams within Spring and see what new ideas they have, what topics they are interested in currently to discuss different projects and the possibilities of collaboration.

220
00:26:23,780 --> 00:26:31,540
And also for us as a spring cloud team, it's a time where we can meet and work on some things together.

221
00:26:31,540 --> 00:26:37,220
So we have our face to face meetings, but they don't happen that often.

222
00:26:37,220 --> 00:26:40,100
And so that's another opportunity for us to do that.

223
00:26:40,100 --> 00:26:49,860
And actually last year when I joined the spring cloud teams, SpringOne platform was happening during my first week on the job.

224
00:26:50,260 --> 00:26:57,680
So I was extremely fortunate to be able to meet everyone in person before starting to work with them.

225
00:26:58,580 --> 00:27:01,200
Wow, that is excellent, excellent timing.

226
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:11,580
When I joined Pivotal four years ago, almost four years ago, SpringOne at the time, SpringOne 2GX was just before I signed on.

227
00:27:11,820 --> 00:27:22,980
And my new boss at the time was kind enough to extend me the offer to attend SpringOne prior to because he said it would be a huge missed opportunity to join Pivotal right after SpringOne.

228
00:27:22,980 --> 00:27:25,060
And I couldn't be more grateful for that.

229
00:27:25,260 --> 00:27:37,740
So I completely understand how valuable that is when you're coming into a new role to have that, that introduction to people as well as kind of the topics of first priority so you can hit the ground running.

230
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:38,520
That's awesome.

231
00:27:39,080 --> 00:27:46,320
So in addition to that, if someone is sitting on the fence out there, if they're wondering, should I come to SpringOne platform, should I not?

232
00:27:46,460 --> 00:27:52,540
What would you say to someone who's not yet gotten their ticket, not yet decided and committed to come to SpringOne platform?

233
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:54,280
Any advice, any suggestions?

234
00:27:55,700 --> 00:28:06,120
It's absolutely a very great place to be if you are working with spring, if you're working both with spring open source and with Pivotal products,

235
00:28:06,120 --> 00:28:11,440
because that's where all the new features are being announced and that's also sort of a deadline.

236
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:20,280
So all the teams are trying to publish their newest features and important changes and be able to present them there.

237
00:28:20,460 --> 00:28:26,720
So a lot of new stuff will be discussed there and shown and tools that were not previously available.

238
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:45,080
So that's a great place to learn about it, but also that's a really unique opportunity to interact with our teams and I think it's also great for, it's great both for us and for the users because the users can voice their concerns or their ideas.

239
00:28:45,080 --> 00:29:01,040
Yes, and of course, if you discuss something face to face, it might be easier to delve into some topics than just by an online discussion and it's definitely great for us because we get a lot of input.

240
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:10,340
So it's a place that is really, and even that is really vibrant, there's a lot of new things being demoed and discussed and shown.

241
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:17,640
So it's sort of on the edge of what we are doing now and it's absolutely a great place to be.

242
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:24,800
Well, and you kind of hit on one of my favorite reasons to attend, but let me just call it out.

243
00:29:24,940 --> 00:29:33,040
You get to meet with the spring team and particularly if you want to come meet Olga Machasek Sharma, this is your perfect opportunity.

244
00:29:33,740 --> 00:29:40,280
Olga, in the interim, I know people will want to come speak with you and see you and shake your hand and just pick your brain on things.

245
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,980
But in the interim, how can they follow you on Twitter?

246
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,680
How can they catch up with you now and maybe make some of those plans for SpringOne?

247
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:49,740
Yeah, absolutely.

248
00:29:49,740 --> 00:30:10,520
So my Twitter handle is Olga underscore Machasek, M-A-C-I-A-S-E-K, but you can also find me on GitHub and on our GitHub channel and feel free to discuss projects and issues and features.

249
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:18,400
I'm always happy to know what users are thinking and to be able to get their insights and their experience.

250
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:27,520
Well, with that, thank you very much for your time and for taking the time out of your schedule to chat with us.

251
00:30:27,860 --> 00:30:30,020
And we look forward to seeing you at SpringOne.

252
00:30:30,540 --> 00:30:31,700
Thank you very much.

253
00:30:32,020 --> 00:30:32,660
See you there.

254
00:30:33,420 --> 00:30:34,840
Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview.

255
00:30:35,340 --> 00:30:36,100
I sure did.

256
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:46,480
Hey, and as a bonus for listening this far, if you want to register for SpringOne Platform, the wonderful conference we have coming up October 7th to 10th in my hometown, Austin, Texas,

257
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:48,160
when you go to SpringOne platform.

258
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:54,440
When you go to SpringOne platform.io to register, you can use the code S1P200 underscore M Heckler.

259
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,900
That's M-H-E-C-K-L-E-R.

260
00:30:58,100 --> 00:30:59,440
That's Mark's last name.

261
00:30:59,620 --> 00:31:04,560
You can find the discount code if you go to pivotal.io slash podcast as well.

262
00:31:04,660 --> 00:31:12,440
And that'll get you $200 off the registration fee, price, winning admission, however you want to think about it.

263
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:15,220
Well, we've got several of these coming out.

264
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:17,500
So if you enjoyed this one, you should check out the other ones.

265
00:31:17,740 --> 00:31:21,740
And otherwise, tune into the regular Pivotal Conversations each week or so.

266
00:31:21,820 --> 00:31:22,920
and we'll see you next time.

267
00:31:23,100 --> 00:31:23,540
Bye-bye.