Sathish A

Posted on Jun 29

Code, Community, and Coffee: A Day at the Java Meetup

#java #ai #learning #productivity

Hi Techies! I’ve got something cool to share from my Java meetup

Yesterday, I attended a Java-focused meetup "Code on JVM – Anaivarum Ondraga Code Seivom" (which means "Let’s all code together on JVM" in Tamil). The meetup was organized at Contentstack, who generously provided the venue. It was a full-day event filled with tech talks, fun activities, and great networking.

1.Starting Strong: JAMstack & Strapi

The event started with a presentation on Strapi, an open-source CMS (Content Management System). The speaker explained how Strapi helps developers easily manage and deliver content to websites and mobile apps.

Why websites become slow?

When a website is built using traditional methods (like PHP + MySQL), every time a user visits a page, the server has to process many tasks – fetch content, apply styling, run logic, etc. This increases loading time.
But with JAMstack, we separate these tasks. It uses JavaScript for logic, APIs for data, and Markup (HTML) for design – making the site fast and scalable.

Example: Imagine your favorite news app. Instead of building every page from scratch, the data is already available in Strapi as an API. So, the app can just fetch and display the news instantly – fast and smooth!

2.Bug Screening Challenge – Test Your Eyes!

Next, we had a fun team activity: the "Error Screening Challenge." Teams were shown a piece of buggy code on screen and had just 45 seconds to fix it.

I was part of a team called “The JVM Five.” We worked together, but honestly, I didn’t perform my best. Still, it was a valuable experience.

Here’s a realistic code example from that session:

Buggy Code:

public class Calculator {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int a = 10;
        int b = 0;
        int result = a / b;
        System.out.println("Result: " + result);
    }
}

Problem:

This code will throw a divide by zero error because we can't divide any number by zero.

Fixed Code:

public class Calculator {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int a = 10;
        int b = 0;

        if (b != 0) {
            int result = a / b;
            System.out.println("Result: " + result);
        } else {
            System.out.println("Error: Cannot divide by zero!");
        }
    }
}

This is how we use basic conditional checks to prevent runtime errors.

3.Break Time – Snacks, Juice & Small Talks

After the challenge, we had a short break with juice and snacks. A good moment to refresh and network with fellow developers.

4.From Traditional to Digital – The Power of Data Pipelines

One of the managers from Contentstack gave a session on data pipelines and how the digital world has evolved.

He compared:

Traditional Era – Data was stored in files and handled manually.
Middle Era – Databases became common, and Excel or Access were used to analyze data.
Now (Digital Era) – We use real-time tools like Snowflake, BigQuery, Kafka, and dashboards to manage and analyze huge volumes of data automatically.

Example: Think about how customer data was collected before – handwritten forms. Today, when you use an app, your location, clicks, searches – everything is tracked and sent to a data pipeline in real-time for analysis. That’s the power of today’s data systems!

5.Java Multi-threading – Tea Shop Waiter Example

The next speaker explained Java Multithreading in a simple and brilliant way using a tea shop analogy.

Analogy:

Imagine a tea shop with only one waiter. If five customers come, he serves one by one, so everyone has to wait. This is like single-threading in Java – one task at a time.

But now, imagine three waiters in the shop. They can take and serve orders at the same time. This is multithreading – Java can run multiple tasks simultaneously using threads.

6.Spring AI and LLM – The Future of Java + AI

One of the most interesting talks was on Spring AI and how it connects with LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Ollama.

The speaker created a React + Next.js page that showed all three AI tools in one interface and compared their responses.

Key Points:

Spring AI helps Java developers use AI tools in their applications.
LLMs like ChatGPT can generate smart text, answer questions, write code, etc.
The speaker showed how to integrate these models into apps and when to use which one.

Example: He gave an example where a user asks the same question to ChatGPT, Claude, and Ollama – and all three gave different styles of answers. He explained which one is better depending on your project needs.

His speaking style and demo were impressive – he made a complex topic simple and exciting.

7.Photo Time & Missed PostgreSQL Session

After all the sessions, we took group photos to celebrate the event and capture the memories.

We had one more session planned on PostgreSQL, but due to the event running late, we couldn’t attend it. I felt bad missing it, but I’ve made up my mind to definitely attend it next time.

The Day:

Even though I didn’t perform well in the coding challenge, I learned a lot from others and enjoyed every moment of the day. Being part of "The JVM Five" team was fun. This day was full of knowledge, fun, and inspiration.

Special thanks to the Payilagam team for sponsoring and encouraging us to participate in this event. Their support means a lot and helps learners like me grow in the tech world.

See you in the next tech journey, Keep Learing!!