About us
Denver Java Users Group is a free, informal, all-volunteer, group of Denver Java enthusiasts that has been meeting since November 1995. We rely on community participation. We need your involvement, ideas, thoughts, and help if we are to continue to provide quality technical education and events now and into the future! Denver Java Users Group brings you leaders and specialists in Java technologies for first-hand exposure to code, best practices, tools, methodologies, and cutting-edge solutions. Meetings are free and open to the public.
You can follow us on Twitter @denverjug or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Upcoming events
3
Michael Carducci: AI Semantic Layer (Critical Infrastructure)
Oracle Broomfield Office: Bldg 1 Conference Room 1 and 2, 500 Eldorado Blvd, Broomfield, CO, USHosted by Boulder Java Users Group - RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/boulderjavausersgroup/events/315847742/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events
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5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, and Networking
6:00-6:15: Announcements & Raffles!
6:15-7:30: AI Semantic Layer (Critical Infrastructure)
Gartner just named the semantic layer a non-negotiable foundation for AI. Almost nobody in the industry knows what that means yet, or why it should worry them.
Every LLM response is a guess, not a fact. Most of the time it's close enough that nobody notices. Then it's wrong, and there was no way to see it coming, because the model doesn't know what your data means—the model doesn't know anything. It's always guessing, based on patterns, every time. The guess is right often enough to feel like magic. It will never be right 100% of the time, and can't change that. It's not a bug waiting on a fix. It's a hole in your architecture.
As one recent paper on the semantic gap puts it:
> “When AI systems enter the picture, descriptive documentation is insufficient. LLM-based interfaces operate directly over data representation. If meaning is not encoded structurally, the model infers it probabilistically.”
Your systems are full of structured data (JSON, databases, APIs) that means something to the code that built it and nothing to anything else, including the AI you just pointed at it. A field called status: 3 means nothing outside your system. Multiply that by every field, every service, every team, and you get an enterprise fluent in nothing but itself. That's the wall every serious AI initiative eventually hits, and it's why so many AI initiatives are underdelivering.
The fix isn't a bigger model or a new platform. It's a set of open standards that have quietly run major parts of the web for decades, built for making data mean something on its own, without a person or a program standing by to translate it. Once your data can say what it is, your AI stops guessing about it. Data-driven interactions become deterministic-first, your entire enterprise data landscape becomes more powerful, your token efficiency goes through the roof, and whole classes of problems in AI disappear. That's the semantic layer.
About
Michael Carducci spent years learning to see things as they actually are; first as a magician, then as a software architect, now as both simultaneously. And somehow that’s not even the whole story.He’s the author of Mastering Software Architecture (Apress, 2025) and is currently writing The Semantic Layer (Packt, 2026). He has spent over 25 years following interesting problems; through roles from individual contributor to CTO and back again, across industries and continents.
As a speaker, he applies the same toolkit he uses in close-up magic: attention, misdirection, timing, storytelling, and the instinct to take the long way around when that’s where the truth lives. Audiences at hundreds of conferences across four continents have described his talks as the kind that change how you think about a problem rather than just what you know about it.
He also makes YouTube videos about technology and curiosity with his wife Kate, because some ideas are too important (or too interesting!) to leave only in conference rooms.
Agile Developer Support
dev2next Lone Tree, Colorado October. Arc of AI Austin, TX April. Conference raffles and multiple speakers.
dev2next
Arc of AIOracle Support
JavaOne San Francisco, California March. Oracle AI World Las Vegas, Nevada October. Meeting facilities and multiple speakers.
JavaOne
Oracle AI WorldNFJS Support
UberConf Westminster, Colorado July. ArchConf Clearwater Beach, Florida December. Multiple speakers.
UberConf
ArchConfJetBrains Support
CLion, DataGrip, DataSpell, GoLand, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, PhpStorm, PyCharm Pro, ReSharper, ReSharper C++, Rider, RubyMine, RustRover, WebStorm, or dotUltimate. Raffle.
JetBrainsConfluent Support
AI ready data products with the World's Data Streaming Platform, by the original co-creators of Apache Kafka. Speaker.
ConfluentCodeScene Support
Scale AI safely, keep code high quality, and increase delivery speed all powered by CodeHealth. Speaker.
CodeSceneRedHat Support
Red Hat open source platform — Power your AI, virtualization, and automation strategies on an open source foundation. Speaker.
RedHat1 attendeeBruno Souza: Annual Career Discussion
Oracle Broomfield Office: Bldg 1 Conference Room 1 and 2, 500 Eldorado Blvd, Broomfield, CO, USHosted by Boulder Java Users Group - RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/boulderjavausersgroup/events/312921296/?eventOrigin=group_upcoming_events
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DetailsPlease take a moment to forward this information to co-workers, friends, and social networks. Be sure to register.
This meetup is co-scheduled with AI Coding & Cloud, Boulder Java Users Group, and Denver Java Users Group.
See location pictures below.5:30-6:00: Food, Soda, and Networking
6:00-6:15: Announcements & Raffles!6:15-7:30: Bruno Souza: Annual Career Discussion
Let's talk about our careers.
Emphasis will include AI related changes.About
Since 1995, helping Java developers improve their careers and work on cool projects with great people, Bruno Souza has been the creator of Code4.Life, an initiative to accelerate developer’s careers. Bruno is a Principal Consultant at Summa Technologies. Developer communities are a personal passion, and Bruno worked actively with Java, NetBeans, Open Solaris, and many other open source communities.As founder and coordinator of SouJava (The Java Users Society), one of the world’s largest Java User Groups, Bruno led the expansion of the Java movement in Brazil. Founder of the Worldwide Java User Groups Community, Bruno helped the creation and organization of hundreds of JUGs worldwide. A Founding Member of the Java Champions, and a Java Developer since the early days, Bruno sits on the Executive Commitee of the Java Community Process (JCP). Bruno also participated in some of the largest Java projects in Brazil. Bruno is an emeritus Director of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), served as President of the innovation-focused Campus Party Institute, and coordinated Nuvem, the Cloud Computing Lab of LSI/USP.
When not in front of a computer, Bruno enjoys time with his family in a little hideout near São Paulo. An amateur in many things — photographer, puppeteer, father — he strives to be good in some of them.
SPONSORS
Agile Developer Support
dev2next Lone Tree, Colorado October. Arc of AI Austin, TX April. Conference raffles and multiple speakers.
dev2next
Arc of AIOracle Support
JavaOne San Francisco, California March. Oracle AI World Las Vegas, Nevada October. Meeting facilities and multiple speakers.
JavaOne
Oracle AI WorldNFJS Support
UberConf Westminster, Colorado July. ArchConf Clearwater Beach, Florida December. Multiple speakers.
UberConf
ArchConfJetBrains Support
CLion, DataGrip, DataSpell, GoLand, IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, PhpStorm, PyCharm Pro, ReSharper, ReSharper C++, Rider, RubyMine, RustRover, WebStorm, or dotUltimate. Raffle.
JetBrainsConfluent Support
AI ready data products with the World's Data Streaming Platform, by the original co-creators of Apache Kafka. Speaker.
ConfluentCodeScene Support
Scale AI safely, keep code high quality, and increase delivery speed all powered by CodeHealth. Speaker.
CodeSceneRedHat Support
Red Hat open source platform — Power your AI, virtualization, and automation strategies on an open source foundation. Speaker.
RedHat1 attendeeCraig Walls: AI Superpowers: Model Context Protocol in Java & Spring AI
Denver Marriott South at Park Meadows, 10345 Park Meadows Drive, Lone Tree, CO, USEvent is hosted by dev2next conference at the Denver Marriot South. This is a combined meetup for AI Code and Cloud, Boulder JUG and Denver JUG groups
Location: Denver Marriott South at Park Meadows
10345 Park Meadows Drive
Lone Tree, CO 801246:30-7:00: Food, Soda, and Networking
7:00-7:15: Announcements & Raffles!7:15-8:30: AI Superpowers: Model Context Protocol in Java & Spring AI
On their own, Large Language Models (LLMs) are only able to generate responses based on their training. While their training may be vast, it will not include any actual data from your organization's databases and systems. What's more, an LLM may be able to answer questions, they are unable to actually interact with your enterprise and take action.Enter Model Context Protocol (MCP). MCP defines a standard with which you can collection a set of related tools, prompts, and resources and make those available to an LLM to make use of. With MCP, your LLMs will be able to interact with databases, APIs, and other components in your enterprise to get things done.
Building and using MCP in Java has never been easier than it is now with Spring AI. Spring AI introduced support for MCP in its 1.0 release and improved upon it tremendously in Spring AI 2.0.In this example-driven session, you'll learn how to build an MCP server in Java using Spring AI, integrate it with clients such as Claude Code and Cursor, and even create your own MCP clients.
About
Craig Walls is a Principal Engineer, Java Champion, Alexa Champion, and the author of Spring AI in Action, Spring in Action, and Build Talking Apps. He's a zealous promoter of the Spring Framework, speaking frequently at local user groups and conferences and writing about Spring. When he's not slinging code, Craig is planning his next trip to Disney World or Disneyland and spending as much time as he can with his wife, two daughters, 1 bird and 3 dogs.dev2next Support & Raffle
They are hosting this meeting and speaker. dev2next will be held in Lone Tree, Colorado from October 12 to 15. As an incentive for the Boulder JUG members to attend the JUG meetings in-person, dev2next would like to raffle out one free ticket for the conference each month a meeting is held. They sponsor multiple speakers.
dev2next25 attendees
Past events
180
