After all this time of developing in Java for different industries/companies, it is a sore realization that my connection to the community of developers is rather non-existing: a couple of Stack Overflow answers, a Github account for interview homeworks, attendances to one or two conferences (Devoxx France / Agile Tour Montréal).

Still, I have been following a number of Twitter accounts (most often because of how helpful the people have been while developing for work) so I had a broad idea of what I had been missing so far: conference talks, books, JUGs, meetups. I have resolved to contribute a bit more this year, especially since I have been unemployed since last December.

After searching for resources for a bit…

Don’t google Java resources (I tried) if you want to keep up with what’s new in Java but go there instead http://javais.cool (which really is missing updated profile pics and @trisha_gee’s Java Annotated Monthly) #javadeveloper

UPDATE 2023, Dec 21: javais.cool is no longer a thing.

… here is what I got!

What did I find?

The greats are everywhere:

• @Vlad_Mihalcea answers on Stack Overflow all the time,
• Thorben Janssen and Baeldung.com (which I realize now is an army of writers) pop up every so often when googling about JPA or Spring (which often happened to me),
• Trisha Gee single-handedly writes the Java Annotated Monthly (+ YouTube playlist for the TL;DR version) which is a great entry point to keep up with Java news.

I an not alone

I think this article is particularly inspiring: https://neha-nsit.medium.com/how-joining-java-community-shaped-my-year-so-far-5c247388e851. Thank you @Neha Sardana for showing the way!

How do I start?

Join a community

• I especially like that of DEV.to / @CodeNewbies for how they encourage new comers to join (I’ll be sure to do so).
• I have subscribed to the Montréal JUG and joined the VJUG’s Slack.

Find mentors

Keep up with the community news (not just Java)

I am now following a bunch of Twitter handles + blogs (the latter using Feedly.com):

• http://mtlynch.io: their writing is great! Recommended reading!
• https://www.helenjoscott.com: discovered recently, I look forward to reading more from them.
• https://nipafx.dev: liked their cheatsheet for Java modules
• https://jvns.ca: love the stick figures zines and their approach to dev

Attend conferences

I registered to the jChampion and DawsCon conferences which, I am sure, will be great sources of topics.

How do I keep going?

That’s the big question. While I am unemployed and have the ’time’ (parenting is a handful though) then I can make it work but what after that?

Something changed when I learnt the difference between “not having time” and “making time for something”.

You make time for things if they are important to you.

— Catalin Pit (@catalinmpit) January 8, 2021

UPDATE 2021, Jan 19: Original tweet was removed.

‘Making time for things if they are important for you’ is a bit overwhelming at the moment though. Here are some of the priorities that I see myself setting:

• I hope to keep interacting with people.
• I need to pace myself for the long run.

The objective is that at some point I can find my place in this community of people sharing the same craft.

Please feel free to share any resource that you think would be useful!