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 00:00:43,460 --> 00:00:49,400 Today we're joined by Trisha G in our Women of SpringOne interview series, and I would like to 10 00:00:49,400 --> 00:00:54,320 just kind of start things off by asking Trisha to share a little bit about herself, kind of give us 11 00:00:54,320 --> 00:00:58,800 some background, and we'll take it from there. So Trisha, welcome, and please tell us about you. 12 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:05,460 Hello, thanks for having me. I'm Trisha. I'm a developer advocate for JetBrains. I mostly work 13 00:01:05,460 --> 00:01:10,020 doing developer advocacy type stuff for IntelliJ IDEA, which means that generally speaking, I try to stay 14 00:01:10,020 --> 00:01:15,280 up to date on what's happening in the whole of the Java community, Java language updates, and try and 15 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:20,680 keep developers up to speed on stuff which is going to be helpful for them in their day jobs when they're 16 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:23,080 hopefully using that IDE if they're using IntelliJ IDEA. 17 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:28,020 Well, at this point, I have to say, who wouldn't use IntelliJ? I mean, really? 18 00:01:30,020 --> 00:01:35,920 Well, yeah. I mean, and for those of you listening, I know and have known Trisha for a long time. 19 00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:39,860 Deepest respect for her and all the things that she has and is accomplishing, 20 00:01:40,300 --> 00:01:45,240 has accomplished, is accomplishing, I guess. For those of you who don't maybe know Trisha as well, 21 00:01:45,700 --> 00:01:51,920 I was hoping we could maybe tease out some thoughts, some background from her, and maybe all of us get to 22 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:56,720 know her a little bit better. So Trisha, if you would, please tell us, how did you get into tech? 23 00:01:56,920 --> 00:01:59,600 Take the Wayback Machine, and we'll see maybe where we lay out. 24 00:02:01,020 --> 00:02:06,700 I have a fairly standard classical way of getting into development, really, the same as a lot of 25 00:02:06,700 --> 00:02:11,620 other people in the industry in terms of, I actually studied computer science at A-level, 26 00:02:11,820 --> 00:02:16,940 so I come from the UK, so at 16 to 18, I was studying computer science, and I went to study 27 00:02:16,940 --> 00:02:21,160 computer science at university. I originally wanted to do astrophysics, actually, because I wanted to be 28 00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:26,220 an astronaut, and I wanted to, I don't know, I wanted to go to Mars. But it turned out I wasn't that 29 00:02:26,220 --> 00:02:31,680 excited about all the physics equations and stuff, and I really liked programming. So I studied computer 30 00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:37,700 science at university instead. I did an undergraduate placement at Ford Motor Company, where I was 31 00:02:37,700 --> 00:02:42,520 doing programming, a bit of, I was doing a bit of web development, a bit of programming, and so then 32 00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:49,420 when I graduated, which is now way back in 2001, I kind of just fell into programming type roles. At that 33 00:02:49,420 --> 00:02:56,200 point in time, I'd studied Java at university, had done a little bit of Java, let me see, 34 00:02:56,220 --> 00:03:01,680 did a bit of Java for my final year project, and ended up doing Java programming roles back in 35 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:07,300 2001, when Java was a fairly new language. And I've basically been doing professional Java 36 00:03:07,300 --> 00:03:12,220 development since then, which is a little bit scary, because I still feel like I'm just kind of getting 37 00:03:12,220 --> 00:03:16,780 the hang of this programming thing. I've been doing it for nearly 20 years. Well, if you count all of the 38 00:03:16,780 --> 00:03:22,580 programming, I've been doing it for more than 20 years. I've been doing Java for 22 years, if you 39 00:03:22,580 --> 00:03:31,480 include university time. Oh my goodness, that's more than half my life. And so yeah, I did programming to 40 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:36,440 begin with as a graduate, and I just really liked it. And the jobs that I had were largely, to begin 41 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:41,840 with, had this kind of classic big industry thing of trying to put you first to the technical role and 42 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:47,100 then advancing you into management. But that's not really where I saw myself. So I ended up jumping 43 00:03:47,100 --> 00:03:52,800 from programming role to programming roles, taking stints of about two years in each different company. So 44 00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:55,760 it means I've worked for a lot of different companies. I've worked for these big enterprise 45 00:03:55,760 --> 00:04:00,060 companies, I've worked for small startups, I've worked for not-more profits. I worked for this 46 00:04:00,060 --> 00:04:04,960 great company called LMAX in London, which is a financial exchange, which is where I actually used 47 00:04:04,960 --> 00:04:09,020 some of my computer science degree in terms of understanding like what big O notation really 48 00:04:09,020 --> 00:04:15,120 meant and how it impacted the performance of your programs. And then after that, I ended up going into 49 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:20,820 developer advocacy. Because what I really found super interesting is having spent all this time 50 00:04:20,820 --> 00:04:24,960 learning how to program, working in all these different types of environments, understanding 51 00:04:24,960 --> 00:04:28,660 what's difficult about this job, I really wanted to make other developers' lives a lot easier. 52 00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:34,060 So I kind of want to tell people all the useful stuff that I've picked up the hard way. I want to teach 53 00:04:34,060 --> 00:04:39,680 them the useful bits of Java. I want to teach them how to use the IDE so they don't have to think about 54 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:44,300 what they're doing. They can just get on with their job. So that's how I ended up working for 55 00:04:44,300 --> 00:04:49,260 JetBrains. I've been working for JetBrains for nearly five years now. And so that's really a sweet spot 56 00:04:49,260 --> 00:04:55,220 for me. I'm still doing Java type stuff. I'm still doing coding. But a lot of what I do is like figure 57 00:04:55,220 --> 00:05:01,080 out how are real developers solving problems? How can I help them solve those problems more usefully 58 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:04,100 without having to bang their head against the brick wall of the tools they're using? 59 00:05:05,600 --> 00:05:11,900 Well, that actually is a phenomenal, bring us up to speed type of review of your background. And it also 60 00:05:11,900 --> 00:05:16,000 covers the next question I was going to ask, which is what you love about it. But I think you've very 61 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:20,520 clearly stated what you love about it. But actually, that leads me in a slightly different direction now 62 00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:26,040 that you've brought this up, because developer advocacy is kind of an interesting field, if you 63 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:32,640 will, an interesting specialization. And sometimes I get the question, how do you go into advocacy? How do 64 00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:37,780 you get started? And, and many times I've, I feel like if, you know, when you kind of look at the 65 00:05:37,780 --> 00:05:43,300 cross section of those of us crazy enough to kind of enter into that area, it almost seems like it's an 66 00:05:43,300 --> 00:05:49,240 accidental evolution, because we start sharing and talking to colleagues about things that we find 67 00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:54,420 useful. And then we start expanding that, or they suggest we go and share our same tricks, tips, 68 00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:58,880 whatever with a local Java user group. And then that evolves to maybe a local conference, and then 69 00:05:58,880 --> 00:06:03,840 other conferences. And then before you know it, you're just there. Was your kind of transition in 70 00:06:03,840 --> 00:06:07,700 that a gradual kind of enlightening? Or was that something that you looked at and said, you know 71 00:06:07,700 --> 00:06:12,460 what, I can do so much good by doing this? Was it kind of a conscious decision? How did, how did you 72 00:06:12,460 --> 00:06:18,480 get here? I guess it was kind of accidental and conscious. Obviously, like you say, to become aware 73 00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:24,000 of this sort of role, you sort of kind of accidentally move into that direction. So for a start, 74 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:29,180 when I was doing all of my other development roles early on, like my first role after Ford, 75 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:34,480 I distinctly remember doing a very thorough job of documenting the code base, we were using a 76 00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:39,260 homegrown library, which wasn't well documented, it wasn't clear how to use it, I really struggled 77 00:06:39,260 --> 00:06:44,580 getting started on it. So what I did when I knew I was leaving the company is I actually put aside 78 00:06:44,580 --> 00:06:49,440 some time to fully document it. As a developer, how do I use this library? And that's like my first 79 00:06:49,440 --> 00:06:54,960 proper role as a graduate. And, and that's where I've always been as a developer, I've always been 80 00:06:54,960 --> 00:07:00,560 very thorough in documentation, I've always tried to write self describing code. And even when my code 81 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:04,160 wasn't that great, it's always been like, look, I've done it. And it's not great way. But these are 82 00:07:04,160 --> 00:07:11,040 the reasons why I did it this way. So I definitely always had that kind of instinct of, you know, I enjoy 83 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:16,440 programming, I think it's fun, but I struggle a lot to, to use things the way they're supposed to be used. 84 00:07:16,440 --> 00:07:20,720 And if I've struggled, I want to write it down. So I kind of started from there. And I started with 85 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:27,080 blogging and things like that. But then there came a time, let me see, around about maybe 2011, 86 00:07:28,120 --> 00:07:35,000 something like that, where, so I joined the London Java community in 2008, when I moved back from New 87 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,840 York, and I needed a job. So I joined the user group, it seemed like a sensible thing to do. 88 00:07:39,640 --> 00:07:44,520 Right, I kind of got involved in it in the user group for an entirely selfish point of view, like, 89 00:07:44,520 --> 00:07:48,800 what do I need to know, what jobs are there, I need to meet people in London, I've been living 90 00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:54,360 in London before, but I felt super disconnected to the city. So I needed a way in, the user group 91 00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:59,800 was a way into that. And then over the next few years, when I met people who are now fairly famous 92 00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:04,800 in the Java community, people like Martin Verberg, like Ben Evans, and I met these people in the London 93 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:10,200 Java community, and they were big in open source, and they were big in the community. They sort of 94 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:19,240 opened my eyes to what was kind of what the Java community was. Before I'd been a typical nine to 95 00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:23,480 five type developer, which I have no problem with nine to five type developers. But you know, 96 00:08:23,480 --> 00:08:28,680 I'd go to work, I would read the internet to find stuff, but I generally just do whatever I needed to 97 00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:33,960 do for the job. And the London Java community has opened my eyes up to all sorts of other stuff that 98 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:39,240 are out there, open my eyes up to open source, and to, to being able to use other people in the 99 00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:44,360 community in different types of roles. So I kind of was trundling along with that for a little while. 100 00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:50,840 And then I think it was 2011, Martin sort of pushed me to do my first lightning talk. And I also, 101 00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:56,440 at the same time, I met Martin Fowler in the pub, weirdly, and complained about the lack of women speakers at 102 00:08:56,440 --> 00:09:00,920 various conferences. And he was like, well, you're in the perfect position to do something about that, 103 00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:05,000 because you're a technical woman. And I'd never thought of it that way before. 104 00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:07,000 Right? 105 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:10,600 Because I'm like, just moaning about these conference organizers not doing more. 106 00:09:10,600 --> 00:09:15,160 And in actual fact, I'm the one in the position to do the most about this, I can stand up and I can 107 00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:19,160 present at these conferences. And by me standing up and presenting at some of these conferences, 108 00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:25,720 I can maybe double the number of women speakers alone. Right? So it became very clear to me that 109 00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:31,000 I have a role to play in this community. And I can do this, especially with the help of mentors like that. 110 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:35,640 They were super supportive. All of these people were like, you know, you can do this. You've got this. 111 00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:37,640 This is a good thing for you to do. You've got the skills. 112 00:09:37,640 --> 00:09:42,920 So very quickly from in the space of about a year, I started from, I already had a blog. 113 00:09:42,920 --> 00:09:47,000 So that's kind of trundling on. But in the space of about a year with people's help and mentoring and 114 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:51,640 pushing, I kind of started speaking at conferences. And then at that point, I was like, yes, this is 115 00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:58,120 what I want to do. I want a job where I am doing things like blogging and conferences and teaching 116 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:04,680 people as the main part of my job, not just as a kind of side aspect. And then I very deliberately 117 00:10:04,680 --> 00:10:09,320 steered my career into, into that direction. One of the other things I wanted, which is kind of 118 00:10:09,320 --> 00:10:16,600 related is that I knew I wanted to work remote. I knew I wanted to be able to, well, I knew I wanted 119 00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:21,000 to be able to work from home. I knew I wanted to start a family in the next five years. Cause you know, 120 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:25,880 I'm a woman and I was like coming up to 35. So I think even before I had a boyfriend at the time, 121 00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:30,920 I'm like, no, this is on the cards and I need to be in a position professionally where I have 122 00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:35,720 flexibility. Should I want to have a family? And so developer advocacy, although there's travel 123 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:40,200 involved in that also seemed like a good fit because I know that a lot of people can work from home 124 00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:45,320 doing that. So again, something I deliberately steered my career towards because it was going to fulfill 125 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:51,320 what I needed from a personal point of view. Yeah, that is an excellent point because it does give you 126 00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:57,000 a great deal of latitude. It also adds a lot of, um, a lot of other tasks. Sometimes folks ask what 127 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:01,960 it is like to do developer advocacy. And one of my responses is it gives you about a hundred different 128 00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:06,360 things to do. So you're never bored. The problem is there at any given point in time, there are about 129 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:11,400 a hundred different things you should and could be doing. Yeah. I'd say that's the biggest challenge 130 00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:15,400 to developer advocacy. And I really struggle with it. Um, that's the one thing I really do struggle 131 00:11:15,400 --> 00:11:19,960 with because partly a lot of it's pressure from myself. There's just so many things I want to do. 132 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:23,480 There's so many places I want to go, so many conferences I want to do. There's so much I want 133 00:11:23,480 --> 00:11:29,400 to write about. I really want to be doing in-depth written tutorials. I also want to be doing screencasts, 134 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:35,320 but there's all sorts of other rubbish, like loads of admin because, um, because I'm fairly the way 135 00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:39,480 that we're structured inside JetBrains. I also have to book my own travel and I have to do a lot of my own 136 00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:44,200 admin for expenses and stuff like that. And that's just, you know, extra overhead. So there's always just 137 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:50,360 all this rubbish to do as well as all the really awesome stuff you want to do. And because my, 138 00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:57,160 the remit I've given myself is cover all of Java and all of IntelliJ IDEA and these are just massive 139 00:11:57,160 --> 00:12:03,080 products and it's impossible to do all of that by myself. And, um, and so, yeah, there's always just 140 00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:08,360 so many things to do and prioritizing them is almost impossible. And figuring out what's valuable is also 141 00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:13,000 quite difficult because something which gets, you know, 300 people at a conference talk, 142 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:17,640 how does that rate against, you know, 10,000 people reading blog posts or, you know, 143 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:22,280 X many subscribers on Twitter? How do you measure these things? Is it really giving value 144 00:12:22,280 --> 00:12:24,360 to the company, to the product? 145 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:32,120 Yeah, it is very difficult to assign specific value to specific actions. It seems like everything kind of 146 00:12:32,120 --> 00:12:37,840 builds on everything else, but I can say with a lot of gratitude, I'm glad that you do all of the 147 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:42,480 things you do because there have been several times I've watched at Tricia G screencast. And 148 00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:49,360 I've also sat in on talks. I've read your, uh, your articles. All of them are just superb. I want to take 149 00:12:49,360 --> 00:12:53,760 it back though to something that you mentioned in terms of your traveling and speaking. There have 150 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:58,400 been times even where you weren't able to travel that you've delivered a talk. I remember one time at 151 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:04,800 Java one, I think it was two or three years ago. Uh, you were unable to travel to Java one and you even, uh, 152 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:10,000 set it up to where you could do it remotely, which was amazing. Uh, and, uh, after some initial 153 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:14,240 technical issues, you work those out and everything, or they work them out, the local team or whatever, 154 00:13:14,240 --> 00:13:18,880 but you were able to deliver that talk. It was wonderful. I was, uh, more than impressed with, 155 00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:23,280 with what you did just to make sure that you, uh, met attendees where they were literally, 156 00:13:23,280 --> 00:13:26,560 even if you couldn't literally be where the attendees were. 157 00:13:26,560 --> 00:13:29,600 Yeah, it's, it's a bit challenging. That's another one of these challenges as well, because 158 00:13:29,600 --> 00:13:33,040 the reason I couldn't chat, couldn't travel is because I was like eight months pregnant. So 159 00:13:33,600 --> 00:13:34,640 I wasn't going anywhere. 160 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:39,680 Yeah. No, I really wanted to give that talk at Java one. Um, and one, this is one of the other 161 00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:43,840 things that kind of ties into finding the balance. I don't really know where to find the balance 162 00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:49,840 between. I want to, I want to continue working because I enjoy it. I also want to want and need to 163 00:13:49,840 --> 00:13:55,840 maintain my visibility. Whilst also, you know, like I've had two kids since I joined JetBrains and, 164 00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:59,040 you know, you have other stuff that gets in the way, other family thing gets in the way. There's 165 00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:04,080 other things that you have to take care of as a human being and learning to balance, 166 00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:08,960 well, learning what that balance is, is quite tricky. So the, the instance you're talking about 167 00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:12,640 is, um, when I was pregnant with my first child, when I was pregnant with my second child, I was like, 168 00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:18,080 I'm not doing that. You know, it's nice to do that. It's nice to try and, um, maintain the visibility 169 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:22,240 to try and reach the audience that you like reaching. But there's sometimes where you're just 170 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:27,040 like, no, I, I need to, you know, I'm eight and a half months pregnant. I should be chilling out, 171 00:14:27,040 --> 00:14:31,440 relaxing. I'm only taking four months maternity leave and I should just fully enjoy those four 172 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:36,960 months and be there with my kid and then slowly ease back into it afterwards. So these are some 173 00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:42,640 lessons that we have to learn as well about balance. Well, and I think that makes you better overall, 174 00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:48,160 really, right? I mean, if you take time away to clear your head, to focus on the things in life 175 00:14:48,160 --> 00:14:52,000 that are truly important, it allows you to see everything with a much clearer lens. 176 00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:57,120 I think so. I find that when I'm super, super busy and really, um, productive in terms of 177 00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:01,760 ticking things off, sometimes I'm so busy ticking things off. I'm not stepping back and looking at 178 00:15:01,760 --> 00:15:08,400 the big picture and you could have done like, I don't know, three articles and five, um, screencasts 179 00:15:08,400 --> 00:15:13,120 and 27 tweets. But at the end of it, you're like, well, none of these are really key to the business 180 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:16,880 or none of these are reaching my customers or none of these are what I feel passionate about. 181 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:20,720 You do sometimes need to be able to step back and say, look, I need some time to figure out what's, 182 00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:24,960 what's really important, what the big picture is. And not necessarily just work wise. It's like, 183 00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:29,280 if you can connect with yourself as a human being, it makes you, particularly as a developer advocate, 184 00:15:29,280 --> 00:15:33,760 it makes you better at connecting to other people as well. I don't think we should be constantly, 185 00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:38,000 there's a lot of pressure at the moment to stay up to date, stay on top of things and just be all go, 186 00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:43,360 go, go in terms of technology. And I think sometimes it's down to people like us to say, 187 00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:46,800 hold on a second, you know, in this case, it's August, it's summer, you know, 188 00:15:46,800 --> 00:15:49,280 perhaps you should be chilling out, just taking some time to, 189 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:54,880 to, to decompress and, and not stressing out about everything all the time. 190 00:15:55,600 --> 00:16:00,160 Yeah. Too true. I almost hate to take the conversation in a different direction now, 191 00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:05,840 because as, as always happens, anytime I get a few minutes of your time, I just find so many gold 192 00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:10,960 nuggets in the conversation that I, I hate to see that part of it in, but let's, let's take this in 193 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:14,960 a different direction and find some gold elsewhere. I guess taking things back to SpringOne, because 194 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:19,680 obviously this interview is part of the profiles, right? The interviews of women of SpringOne platform, 195 00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:24,480 uh, you haven't presented at SpringOne before, but you're no stranger to the spring community and 196 00:16:24,480 --> 00:16:30,160 topics that are near and dear to our hearts. Uh, you have, uh, had a great talk at spring.io called 197 00:16:30,160 --> 00:16:37,440 is groovy better than Java for testing, which is just, uh, uh, the suspense is killing me. So can you 198 00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:44,000 tell us a little bit more about that? Uh, yes, this is a talk I gave in, in 2015. Uh, that was again, 199 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:48,640 like I, I distinctly remember because I flew over to Barcelona, which is only an hour from where I live in 200 00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:54,080 Seville. Um, again, quite pregnant with my first child. And, um, I kind of flew in, gave the talk 201 00:16:54,080 --> 00:17:01,120 and flew back the same day. And I was like, no, I'm not doing that again. But it's, I like that talk. 202 00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:06,240 It's, I would like a chance to explore this topic a bit more is groovy better than Java for testing. 203 00:17:06,240 --> 00:17:12,480 Of course it's a clickbait type title because the answer of these things is it depends in the context 204 00:17:12,480 --> 00:17:18,320 in which I came up with the content for that talk, um, groovy, but specifically the spot 205 00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:26,640 framework was a much better way of encouraging the team to think in terms of how to write unit 206 00:17:26,640 --> 00:17:32,000 tests in a sort of given when and then type way, how to clearly separate what you're really testing 207 00:17:32,000 --> 00:17:39,520 versus set up. Um, the, um, groovy allowed us to be much more, um, even though I, when I started 208 00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:43,440 doing this, I was not really a groovy person. I was very thoroughly a Java person. And yet I still 209 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:48,000 found the groovy tests a bit more readable, um, because it reduces a lot of the noise in terms 210 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:52,720 of the boilerplate. And this is also in the context of MongoDB and in MongoDB, we do a lot of creating 211 00:17:52,720 --> 00:18:00,320 hash maps and that's quite clunky in Java and much more readable in groovy. So for this particular use 212 00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:07,040 case groovy and specifically spark, um, was a much better, much better set of tools for us to do 213 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:17,440 testing. Um, since then with J unit five and some of the modern, uh, advances if you like in unit testing, 214 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:22,320 you could argue there's not as much between them, but it also depends a lot on the team. I've just 215 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:27,520 found pretty much better for the team that we were working with because, uh, it focused people on how to 216 00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:31,680 write the tests, but in other teams where they already have a discipline in how to write tests, 217 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:36,720 sometimes Java is much better because Java being statically typed being, you know, I know that you 218 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:41,920 can compile Ruby, but everyone says that to me. I know, but that's not, it's not the same thing. 219 00:18:41,920 --> 00:18:47,360 Java being statically typed, Java being, um, much more amenable to things like refactoring inside 220 00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:53,280 tools like IntelliJ IDEA. Sometimes it's just better to write stuff in Java from the beginning because 221 00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:57,760 everyone on the team should probably may understand Java, uh, everyone on the team can use something 222 00:18:57,760 --> 00:19:03,280 like IntelliJ IDEA to refactor the things you get, uh, you get really fast failure if you have 223 00:19:03,280 --> 00:19:08,400 compilation problems instead of Groovy where it only tells you when you run it. So, you know, 224 00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:13,600 in the end it depends, but I'm still a big fan of Spock for testing. It's just a really nice framework. 225 00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:19,440 Okay. Well, great answer. I was kind of hoping for the definitive. Yes, absolutely. Or 226 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:23,920 absolutely not. But yeah, I guess it's like most things, right? We still have to reason through 227 00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:32,000 it in our current circumstances. So I still choose spot first and foremost when I'm trying to write 228 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:36,320 tests, but every now and again, when I start to, that's usually when I create a new project, but 229 00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:40,400 often when I have to maintain the project, I just find it a bit easier to have stuff written in Java 230 00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:45,840 because it's easier to move code around in Java automatically. And the groovy stuff, because it's 231 00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:51,120 dynamic sometimes just doesn't, it just doesn't refactor or get changed in a way that you want it to. 232 00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:58,320 Yeah. Yeah. Completely understand that. Um, but now of course, you, you know, this has to be 233 00:19:58,320 --> 00:20:04,720 coming, right? Um, what are your thoughts about Kotlin for testing or otherwise anything really? 234 00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:09,600 I made the mistake of, of taking that code base that we've just been talking about where we had 235 00:20:09,600 --> 00:20:13,840 loads of spot tests and trying to turn those into Kotlin tests. This is my, this is the first thing 236 00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:18,960 I tried when I joined JetBrains. Groovy to Kotlin, even though the language kind of looks fairly 237 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:23,920 similar because there's not so much boilerplates, they're not the same because groovy is at one 238 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:29,600 end being like super dynamic and like bloaty light and Kotlin on the other end, but it's, it's not just, 239 00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:34,320 um, static types, but it's also really strict in terms of nulls and things like that. 240 00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:38,640 You can't easily turn groovy tests into Kotlin tests. You just get a lot of compilation 241 00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:45,280 problems straight away. So my first trial at using Kotlin for testing was not super encouraging. 242 00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:49,280 I do think if you've come from a Java point of view and you've been writing your tests in Java, 243 00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:54,880 I think that Kotlin can make, can help you write much more concise tests. Uh, again, 244 00:20:54,880 --> 00:20:59,280 can get out of your way in terms of boilerplate, allow you to set stuff up much more easily without 245 00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:04,320 having a lot of the ceremony that people complain about with Java. And of course you get, uh, 246 00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:07,760 uh, the advantages again, you've got strict compilation and stuff. So you get compilation 247 00:21:07,760 --> 00:21:12,080 failures rather than waiting to run the test to find that you've got some sort of weird typo, 248 00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:18,160 which is causing problems. So, um, Kotlin, I think is a good choice for, for a testing language. 249 00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:22,000 I'll be completely honest though, even though I've been working at JetBrains for nearly five years, 250 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:26,960 I've not written a lot of Kotlin and partly because we already have loads of Kotlin advocates 251 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:32,560 and we only have two Java advocates. So I definitely still end up doing a lot of Java stuff. 252 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,880 And, uh, so that's kind of the main reason really, but also because I'm just kind of 253 00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:42,880 super used to writing Java stuff. So it's still my first go-to language for, for a lot of things. 254 00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:48,640 Yeah. Makes perfect sense. I'm a big fan of Kotlin, but, uh, yeah, I, I think, uh, 255 00:21:48,640 --> 00:21:53,680 the depth and the breadth that Java brings to the table just due to its longevity as well as its 256 00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:59,520 innovation over the years is, uh, it's compelling. So completely, uh, agree and understand on that. 257 00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:05,200 Well, uh, now we, we've kind of covered some of the past, but that brings us to the present, 258 00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:10,000 right? Uh, this year at SpringOne platform, you're going to be speaking about fully reactive 259 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:15,760 spring Kotlin and Java effects, uh, playing together. Can you tell us kind of how you came 260 00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:20,080 up with that topic and how it developed and maybe a little bit about where you're going to be heading 261 00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:23,520 with that? Yeah. So a couple of years ago, Josh long asked me to 262 00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:27,760 co-present with him. Um, and that was when I was pregnant with my second child. And so I was like, 263 00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:31,920 oh no, I can't do it right now because there's just too much going on. And then last year when 264 00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:35,520 I was trying to think of topics to present at Java one, which became Oracle code one, 265 00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:39,680 I reached out to Josh and I was like, should we do something together? Let's, let's co-present 266 00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:43,520 something. And because both of us do a lot of live demos, we thought, why don't we do this like 267 00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:50,480 pair programming, pair coding, dual type thing. Um, and so Josh took a look at some of the stuff. 268 00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:53,840 Well, he's, he's, he's aware of what I've been doing before. He's like, why don't we take one of your, 269 00:22:53,840 --> 00:23:00,080 um, things that you've done before, uh, and then spring boot it and, um, and, and we'll split it 270 00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:04,720 into sort of microservices type thing. And then, you know, I'll do the springy stuff and you do the 271 00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:09,760 Java effects stuff, which is similar to what I've been doing in my demos before. So it was kind of a 272 00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:15,760 collaboration between, between me and Josh and, you know, being me and Josh, it's kind of this wild, 273 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:19,680 like live coding thing, but also let's try and put as many buzzwords as possible. Like 274 00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:24,000 what else could we put in here? It had mongodb in here as well before, but when we actually presented 275 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:28,240 it at code one, we just didn't have time to do any of the mongodb stuff at all. We were like, 276 00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:32,560 let's just do reactive spring Kotlin Java effects. And that's, that's going to be the end of it. 277 00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:38,960 So, um, so yes, this was like a super intense talk and I spent, well, we spent probably about 278 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:42,880 two days, like practicing it and coming up, bringing it together and stuff in San Francisco 279 00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:47,280 last year. Sadly, I guess it actually wasn't recorded, but it's good because it gives us 280 00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:52,080 an opportunity to give it again. But at SpringOne, so I said to Josh, do you want to co-present 281 00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,520 it with me? He's like, no, no, you can, you take this. You do it on your own. I'm good. Presumably 282 00:23:55,520 --> 00:24:01,600 he's doing like other stuff. And, um, and so, yeah, so I'm going to try and take this super ambitious 283 00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:06,560 live coding thing that we did where I only have to do half of it. And now I have to also do Josh's 284 00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:11,920 half of it as well, which, and Josh was doing the Kotlin stuff. So now I have to learn Kotlin way 285 00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:17,040 better than I know it at the moment. Um, so yeah, that's not challenging at all. 286 00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:24,800 Well, maybe for lesser mortals, but I, I know this is going to be an amazing talk. And, uh, I'm 287 00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:28,800 sure I speak for Josh in, in saying that it'll only be better, uh, because you're, you're kind 288 00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:34,000 of bringing it end to end, uh, which is, is quite awesome. I'm, as you may remember, 289 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,440 I've written a couple or coauthored a couple of books, not written by myself, but coauthored 290 00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:42,560 a couple of books on Java FX. I'm a big fan of Kotlin. I'm a huge fan of spring shock. Uh, 291 00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:47,680 and I'm, I just can't wait to see this talk. So, uh, if any of you out there are not already 292 00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:53,200 booked to go to, um, SpringOne platform, you should probably look at this as the tipping 293 00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:57,760 point and go ahead and get your, your tickets and make plans because this talk by itself, 294 00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:04,160 I think is going to be worth the entire price of admission. So, um, yeah, just, uh, yeah, 295 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:08,960 no pressure, but, but I, I wouldn't even say that if I didn't fully believe it, I look at the title 296 00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:15,280 and I'm already in. So, okay. So I guess kind of bringing this to a close as much as I love this 297 00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:19,360 conversation, if we could just kind of wrap up with what are you looking forward to a SpringOne 298 00:25:19,360 --> 00:25:24,400 platform other than your talk? I know you're excited about that. Uh, maybe, you know, looking at it, 299 00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:28,720 going, how am I going to fit all this in, you know, an hour, but what, uh, anything in particular 300 00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:32,720 you're looking forward to there? I'm just looking forward to being there. I can't believe I haven't 301 00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,240 been before. I mean, every year I've thought about going to SpringOne and every year, someone from 302 00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:39,920 Pivotal has said, you know, you should come. And I've been like, oh, I'm already, I'm already booked 303 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:44,560 up. So this year I made the decision very early on, I think before last Christmas, that this is 304 00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:49,120 something I wanted to do this year. I want to be there. I want to, I want to hang out with like the 305 00:25:49,120 --> 00:25:54,000 spring community because it's a community that I don't always necessarily hang out with. I've done 306 00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:58,640 spring casts for spring support and intelligent idea. And I speak to people over Twitter and stuff, 307 00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:02,320 but it's, it's a slightly different community from the one that I usually see at conferences. 308 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,480 So I'm just really looking forward to not only meeting the speakers and the other, like, you know, 309 00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:11,280 key people at the conference, but mostly the attendees and getting to hear like what they're doing, 310 00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,280 what they're working on, what their pain points are and you know what they're excited about. 311 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:20,160 Well, I think you've already actually covered my next question really well, but in case you 312 00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:24,960 have anything else to add, uh, what you might say to someone considering coming to SpringOne 313 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:30,720 platform, why should they attend? I think for me conferences, it's all about the hallway track. 314 00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:35,760 Um, it's obviously going to talks is really cool and there's some great stuff and the talks will get 315 00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:40,000 you super inspired. This is the thing that got me about first conference I went to. I went to a couple 316 00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:44,000 of talks and was like, my goodness, I really want to be working this way. I want to be using these tools. 317 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:48,880 I want to be working with a company that does these sorts of things. But the, the more conferences that 318 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:53,760 go to, that I go to, the more value I get out of meeting people, talking to people, making those 319 00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:59,440 connections, networking, because the videos, you can watch them online often enough. And that's great. 320 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:03,520 And if you make time to do it, but what you really get out of coming to the conference is actually 321 00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:08,480 meeting people, asking questions of the, of the actual presenters. Um, but also meeting people 322 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:13,040 like you who are working on similar sorts of things to you. And it really help you, um, 323 00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:17,600 just become inspired and get better at your, at your work. 324 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,920 Well, that I think sums up yet another thing that you really didn't touch on specifically, 325 00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:28,240 but I'll point it out. Uh, if you come to SpringOne platform, you not only get to hear 326 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:34,080 and see Trisha G speak, you actually will get a chance to chat with and meet Trisha. So if you, 327 00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,800 again, if you haven't made plans plan to be there, but in the interim, uh, how can folks, 328 00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:43,760 uh, follow you, get in touch with you? I, this would be a good time to maybe share your Twitter. 329 00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:52,320 Uh, is Trisha underscore G T R I S H A underscore G E E. Um, so that's where I, I've been a bit 330 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:56,640 quiet cause it's been summertime, but that's where I'm usually posting links to stuff from my personal 331 00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:02,320 blog to the IntelliJ blog. Um, and what else? And I guess sometimes some code on GitHub and stuff, 332 00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,280 but yeah, Twitter is probably the best place to find out what I'm up to. 333 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:11,520 Well, with that, we will wrap up the interview and thanks everyone for listening in. Thank you very 334 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,680 much, Trisha, for, for carving out some time to speak with us and we'll look forward to seeing 335 00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:20,880 you at SpringOne platform. Thanks very much for having me. Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview. 336 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:26,800 I sure did. Hey, and as a bonus for listening this far, if you want to register for SpringOne platform, 337 00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:32,960 the wonderful conference we have coming up October 7th to 10th in my hometown, Austin, Texas, 338 00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:40,480 when you go to SpringOne platform.io to register, you can use the code S one P 200 underscore M heckler. 339 00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:48,240 That's M H E C K L E R. That's Mark's last name. You can find the discount code. Uh, if you go to 340 00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:55,280 pivotal dot IO slash podcast as well, and that'll get you $200 off the registration, uh, fee price, 341 00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:00,960 winning admission, however you want to think about it. Well, uh, we've got a several of these coming 342 00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:05,360 out. So if you enjoyed this one, you should check out the other ones and, uh, otherwise tune into the 343 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,520 regular Pivotal Conversations each week or so, and we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.