As 2024 comes to an end, I want to share my journey through this eventful year. It has been filled with exciting projects, knowledge sharing, and connecting with developer communities worldwide.
Enterprise Modernization Project
This year’s highlight of my consulting work has been returning to Switzerland’s largest wholesale company. I’m contributing to an extensive modernization project of their ERP systems. This project perfectly fits my expertise in building business applications using Vaadin, Spring Boot, SQL with jOOQ, and Hibernate.
Global Speaking Engagements
This year, I was privileged to share knowledge with developer communities across four continents. My talks focused on several key topics that I’m passionate about:
CQRS and Modern Java
This was my most presented topic in 2024, reaching audiences from Peru to the Philippines and Switzerland to the United States. I shared insights about implementing CQRS (Command Query Responsibility Segregation) using modern Java features.
Full-Stack Development
I presented at events like DevDays Europe and the JUG Darmstadt and engaged in meaningful discussions about the evolution of full-stack development. I had interesting conversations about how it changed and how we can bring it back to the Java ecosystem.
Data Access
My expertise with jOOQ and database access was the topic at Vaadin Create in Frankfurt, where I discussed building efficient data access strategies. I also conducted several sessions comparing different ORM approaches, including a popular talk titled “Do you really need Hibernate?”
Conference Highlights
The year took me to notable events, including:
- Voxxed Days Bucharest, Romania
- Devnexus, Atlanta, GA, USA
- JCON, Cologne, Germany
- dev2next, Denver, CO, USA
- Vaadin Create, Frankfurt, Germany
- IT-Tage, Frankfurt, Germany
I also maintained strong connections with the Swiss Java community, speaking at multiple Java User Group events in Zürich, Bern, St. Gallen, and Luzern.
Looking Forward to 2025
I’m excited to announce that I’ve already been accepted to speak at several major conferences in the first half of 2025:
- jChampions Conference in Dublin (January): I’ll be discussing the shift from Microservices to Self-Contained Systems
- Devnexus in Atlanta (March): Continuing the discussion on CQRS with modern Java
- JavaOne in Redwood Shores (March): Exploring the return of full-stack development
- JavaLand at Nürburgring (April): A workshop covering Vaadin full-stack development and a talk about data access strategies
- JAX in Mainz (May): Examining when Hibernate is truly necessary
Beyond these speaking engagements, I’m excited to continue working on enterprise modernization projects and sharing knowledge about building efficient, maintainable Java applications. The positive reception to my talks about CQRS, modern Java features, and data layer implementation strategies shows a strong interest in these topics within the Java community.
Thank you to all the conference organizers, attendees, and clients who made 2024 such a remarkable year. Here’s to more learning and sharing in 2025!
