Utrecht JUG 10-Yr Anniversary: Java, AI and Forces Shaping Our Developer Future

We are excited to announce our next Utrecht JUG meetup on March 31, 2026. And this one is extra special as we celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Utrecht Java User Group!

For a decade, the Utrecht JUG has been bringing together Java developers to share knowledge, exchange ideas, and build a strong local community. We’re proud of how far we’ve come and we’re celebrating in style with two world-class speakers: Holly Cummins and Dr. Venkat Subramaniam.

In the first session, Holly Cummins will challenge us to rethink what really impacts our daily work as developers. From physics and the speed of light to statistics, economics, and the end of Moore’s Law, this wide-ranging and thought-provoking talk explores why topics we once ignored may now be critical to our success. We’ll dive into concurrency, Project Loom, AOT, and why certain ideas that were “bad” before might suddenly be the right choice today.

After the break, Dr. Venkat Subramaniam will explore the power and perils of AI-assisted development. Tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT can dramatically improve productivity, but only when used wisely. In this practical and insightful session, Venkat will demonstrate how to leverage AI effectively, understand its limitations, and make better engineering decisions when building applications.

Join us for an evening full of big ideas, practical insights, great conversations and a celebration of 10 years of Utrecht JUG!

Please join us and RSVP!

Because of the limited number of seats, please keep your RSVP up-to-date, so we can welcome someone else if you can't make it.

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## Timeschedule

17:00 Doors open
17:30 Food & Drinks
18:15 Things You Thought You Didn’t Need To Care About That Have a Big Impact On Your Job by Holly Cummins
19:15 Break
19:30 The Power and Perils of Using Copilot and ChatGPT for Application Development by Venkat Subramaniam
20:30 Drinks

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# Talks

## Things You Thought You Didn’t Need To Care About That Have a Big Impact On Your Job

Development is about working with computers, right? Well, not quite. Development is about working with computers (easy), and working with people (hard). And it’s also about physics.
Things like the speed of light and thermodynamics influence APIs because they influence hardware and networking. Statistics, whether we liked it at university or not, is shaping modern development workflows. Economics — including the end of zero-interest rates — is influencing hiring and the broader tech landscape.
In this wide-ranging talk, Holly will explore why the end of Moore’s Law means we may finally need to embrace concurrent programming properly, why Loom is a good idea now when green threads once weren’t, why AOT has become attractive again, and how much business, finance, and statistics should matter to us as developers.

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## The Power and Perils of Using Copilot and ChatGPT for Application Development

Tools serve us well when we understand their power, know when to use them, and use them wisely. AI tools are no different.
In this presentation, we’ll look at practical ways to use AI tools like Copilot and ChatGPT in application development. We’ll explore how they can improve productivity and creativity — and where caution is needed. You’ll learn how to benefit from AI while staying effective, responsible, and in control as a developer.

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# Speakers

## Holly Cummins

Holly Cummins is a Senior Principal Software Engineer on the IBM Quarkus team and a Java Champion. Over her career, Holly has been a full-stack JavaScript developer, a build architect, a client-facing consultant, a JVM performance engineer, and an innovation leader.

She has led projects to understand climate risks, count fish, help a blind athlete run ultra-marathons in the desert solo, and invent stories (although not at the same time). Holly is passionate about sustainability, technical empathy, extreme programming, proper testing, and automating all the things.

You can find her at http://hollycummins.com or follow her on socials at @holly_cummins.

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## Venkat Subramaniam

Dr. Venkat Subramaniam is an award-winning author, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., an instructional professor at the University of Houston, and creator of dev2next conference.

He has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, and is a regularly-invited speaker at several international conferences. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with sustainable agile practices on their software projects.

Venkat is a (co)author of multiple technical books, including the 2007 Jolt Productivity award winning book Practices of an Agile Developer. You can find a list of his books at <[https://www.agiledeveloper.com](https://urldefense.com/v3/https://www.agiledeveloper.com;!!NPQZPu0!6In-vnyqHXhLaTSZn6gv8YVA2sxYky7o1G1UEZYElYKblqYqQd5W2U_IBbqYemHNKhTykLpl1M2yXAkqNXsjatur5wrlog$ "https://urldefense.com/v3/https://www.agiledeveloper.com;!!NPQZPu0!6In-vnyqHXhLaTSZn6gv8YVA2sxYky7o1G1UEZYElYKblqYqQd5W2U_IBbqYemHNKhTykLpl1M2yXAkqNXsjatur5wrlog$")>.