TJUG 1026 - Venkat Subramaniam on Coding with Agents and Async in Spring

Venkat Subramaniam is a legend of programming known for his knowledgeable, yet entertaining live coding sessions. For the first time in more than a decade since his last visit to Cluj, he's returning with two new ones fit for the age we are living in.

The event logistics and catering are provided by Endava.

17.30-18.00 Guest reception

18.00 - 19.30: Refactoring to Modernize Java using AI

IDEs have provided ways to refactor code for a long time now. In spite of their effectiveness, that journey is arduous and time consuming. Reluctance to refactor increases the cost of development. However, refactoring for the sake of doing so can lead to greater productivity loss as well. In this presentation we will take a highly interactive approach. We will take an example codebase, observe the modernization opportunities in it, then use AI to refactor the code from the point of view of modernization, then observe the effectiveness of the tool and how we can guide it along for better quality and improved results.

19.00 - 19.15 Break

19.15 - 20:45: Asynchronous Programming in Spring: Past to Present

Building scalable Spring applications often depends on choosing the right approach to asynchronous programming. In the past, developers relied heavily on Reactive libraries and WebFlux to handle concurrency and scalability, but do those choices still make sense today? This session takes a practical look at how asynchronous programming in Spring Boot has evolved, comparing older reactive models with modern best practices. Attendees will explore current tools and design patterns for creating efficient, responsive Spring applications, and learn when (and when not) to use reactive approaches in today’s Spring ecosystem. The talk provides a clear understanding of how to select the right async strategy for your workloads while keeping code maintainable and production-ready.