PCD May 2026

If you were wondering how software engineers use AI as part of their processes, wonder no more. No hype, no marketing, but the real essence. Join us and learn!

Register and ignore the waiting list, since we have plenty of room. I'll accept your RSVP.

Please join us in person and let's have an amazing learning and networking event at our host "Neapolis University Paphos".

Speakers wanted:
If you are working on something you would like to share or you are playing / learning something new, let us know. Let's keep the community alive by sharing and learning from each other.

Location:
Neapolis University Paphos
2 Danais Avenue, Paphos 8042

ROOM: Ammochostos

Schedule:
18:50 Doors opening
19:00 Welcome Intro
19:10 Talk by Marek Dominiak
19:50 Talk by Andrei Kogun
20:30 Networking
21:00 Closing

Talk#1 Details: "A Story of a Painful Migration"

In theory, migrating a large application, especially an older monolith, should be straightforward because Java's backward compatibility and tools like OpenRewrite promise to ease the process, but is it really that simple? As the old saying goes, "In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not," and anyone who has attempted to upgrade a sizable application with over 1,000,000 lines of code knows it is a challenging task even with the help of AI agents. In my talk, I will share the journey of a real-world application where we upgraded from Java 11 with Spring 4, Hibernate 5, and Elasticsearch 5 to Java 21+, Spring 6+, Hibernate 6+, and Elasticsearch 8, while managing hundreds of related libraries along the way. I will discuss the specific pain points that required out-of-the-box thinking, the necessity of rewriting outdated solutions, the importance of removing unnecessary code, and the practical strategies we used to navigate this massive shift.
Join me to learn actionable solutions that can save you significant time and pain when migrating your own application to a newer stack, offering valuable insights and a bit of fun for anyone planning an upgrade or curious about the architectural evolution of a legacy system.

Marek Dominiak is the CEO of Sparkbyte Solutions Ltd and a hands-on architect. He brings 19 years of expertise to the Java ecosystem. He is dedicated to mentoring developers and championing Software Craftsmanship and Domain-Driven Design to build sustainable high-quality systems.

Talk#2 Details: "Println Debugging Done Right"

When a production issue appears, the hardest part is not fixing it—it’s understanding what’s actually happening. Traditional approaches like adding logs or redeploying are slow, intrusive, and often unreliable. In this talk, we introduce logpoints, a lightweight debugging technique in IntelliJ IDEA that lets you inject runtime logging without stopping execution, restarting the application, or modifying source code. We’ll start with a live debugging session in the IDE, showing how logpoints help quickly isolate inconsistent behavior in a running system and navigate directly from runtime output to the responsible code. Then we’ll go further to explore how AI agents can leverage logpoints via MCP (Model Context Protocol) to collect execution context, reduce uncertainty, and assist in diagnosing issues autonomously. This session is about faster feedback loops, safer production investigation, and a new interaction model between developers, tools, and AI.

Andrei Kogun is a Product Expert at JetBrains. He specializes in the Java debugger and enhancing the development experience within IntelliJ IDEA. He is also an active contributor to the JUG.CY community, where he focuses on fostering technical growth and supporting local developers.