ArnhemJUG - January meetup

ArnhemJUG
We are excited to announce the first meetup of 2026. We are welcomed by OpenValue Arnhem for the January meetup!

Agenda

• 17:00 CET walk-in
• 17:30 – 18:30 Food and drinks
• 18:30 – 19:30 talk: Bigger Unit Tests are Better - why small unit test classes will slow you down by Peter Schuler
• 19:30 – 19:45 break
• 19:45 – 20:45 talk: Creating effective and objective architectural decision records by Piet van Dongen
• 20:45 – 21:30 drinks

Bigger Unit Tests are Better - why small unit test classes will slow you down
Do you take care that every class in your system has a separate unit test class? Are you a proud Test-First advocate? A code coverage evangelist? Are you the Sonar police in your team? Do you take pride in knowing all the quirks of your mocking framework? Then this session might be a cold shower for you.

You will see how the general approach to unit testing might harm your flexibility. But a few simple changes in your approach will make your life better, your coding faster, your refactoring easier and your understanding of the business requirements stronger.

In this presentation, you will learn new strategies that will help you make your unit tests bigger. First, guided by clear code examples, we will look at why having many small test classes may harm you. Secondly, you will understand why making the tests bigger is such an important improvement. And lastly, you will learn techniques and tricks that will help make your unit tests bigger.

About Peter Schuler
Peter is a lifelong Java developer with a passion for TDD and code quality. Lately he has become a Java community lead for the Rabobank as a side hustle. In his off time, he likes to work in the garden or goes for a short run.

Creating effective and objective architectural decision records
Documenting decisions is like eating your veggies as a kid: they keep telling you it’s good for you, but you just hate doing it. Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) to the rescue! ADRs are perfect for just-in-time, just-enough documentation for engineering teams and organizations.

During this session, you will learn how to make architectural decisions effectively and objectively by:

• Learning the structure of a good ADR (no more walls of text that nobody reads anyway!)
• Practicing how to turn subjective choices into objective ones (no more pros and cons lists and tribal conflicts!)
• Creating editable diagrams, fast (no more spending hours wrestling tools that your collaborators don’t know how to use!)
• Collaborating quickly with technical and non-technical stakeholders (no more hours of Tower of Babel meetings!)
• Reporting the decision using effective language and fit-for-audience diagrams (no more writing reports that end up unread in drawers!)

Do you want to learn how to facilitate good decision making without spending weeks looking for consent?

Then join this session and you will walk away a better software architecture decision facilitator.

About Piet van Dongen
Piet van Dongen is a senior software architect and engineering consultant at OpenValue, helping organizations solve complex technology challenges through effective software practices. With expertise spanning architecture, engineering, and education, he delivers practical solutions focused on resilient architectures and short development cycles. Known for his calm demeanor under pressure and strategic use of humor, Piet has guided clients through large-scale transformations, trained architects and engineers, and built an extensive professional network across the European tech community as organizer of the Dutch iSAQB Software Architecture Community and former leader of the Dutch AWS User Group.

A regular speaker at international conferences including AWS re:Invent, DevOpsDays, Codemotion, and Devoxx, Piet shares insights on effective software architecture practices, cloud migrations, and resilience engineering, with a blend of technical depth and engaging humor. His pragmatic approach combines technical expertise with business acumen, enabling teams to successfully adopt modern software architecture and engineering practices and DevOps methodologies. Whether consulting, speaking, or training, Piet partners with organizations to deliver tangible value and navigate their software delivery journeys with confidence.