JavaOne Interviews: Stephen Chin

by Jonathan Giles | Aug 31, 2014 | Interviews

Today I have an interview with Stephen Chin. For those new to this series, here are the people who have been interviewed so far:

• Eugene Ryzhikov
• Mikael Grev
• Stephen Chin
• David Grieve
• Carl Dea
• Johan Vos
• Hendrik Ebbers

Let’s get into the interview! Enjoy 🙂

Hi there. Thanks for taking the time to do this quick interview. Can you please introduce yourself?
Hi, I am Stephen Chin (aka. steveonjava), Hacker, Author, Java Ambassador and also the JavaOne Content Chair.  If you like the conference, then it must be because Java is a great technology with an even greater community!  If not, then it is probably my fault.  🙁

Is this your first time presenting at JavaOne, or are you a JavaOne veteran?
Longtime attendee, pretty longtime speaker (and occasional Rock Star Speaker).

What are you going to talk about at JavaOne?
That is a great question that I am trying to avoid thinking about myself as I continue to lie to myself that preparation won’t be as horrendous as last year, and procrastinate away!  If I were to actually think about it, I might remember that I am going to do a UI mashup to show off the new Date and Time API, hack on some wearable embedded devices in a cool lab, and even perform a magic show.  Heck, I would even throw in an Agile talk for the brand new track we are kicking off, and do NightHacking interviews all afternoon in the Java Hub with notorious Java geeks.

However, I don’t actually know about any of this, because that amount of preparation would be too much for a normal person to handle…

Do you have any big announcements or releases planned leading up to (or at) JavaOne? Can you give any hints? 😉
Well, yes.  But you will have to wait for the welcome keynote to hear about that.  Oops, another thing I don’t have time to do [and have now forgotten about].  Back to playing with printing Dukes on my 3D printer!  🙂

Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
I definitely don’t want to talk about other stuff I am helping out with like the new Embedded Device Showcase, Keynote Demos, or OTN Lab [where the 3D printer will live for the week], because that would further reinforce how badly behind I am on prep.  It is a good thing that I will forget about this interview right afterwards.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to answer these questions! All the best for your JavaOne talks!

JavaOne Interviews: Mikael Grev

by Jonathan Giles | Aug 27, 2014 | Interviews

Today I have an interview with Mikael Grev. For those new to this series, here are the people who have been interviewed so far:

• Eugene Ryzhikov
• Mikael Grev
• Stephen Chin
• David Grieve
• Carl Dea
• Johan Vos
• Hendrik Ebbers

Hi there. Thanks for taking the time to do this quick interview. Can you please introduce yourself?
Hello Jonathan!
I have been in the Java ecosystem since Swing was a newborn. I work with many different things, some of which include creating Android apps (one Google Now competitor soon to be released), conceptual design for fighter aircraft systems, client application development/architecture and creating components/widgets in Swing and now JavaFX. Much API, UI/UX design and performance work, less web crap.

I’m a geek from very young age, I started programming my C-64 when I was ten (according to mom). Then I had a slight detour into piloting fighter jets for 17 years until I two years ago went back to being a full time computer geek and API snob. I collect pixels and have many of them in use and I set an alarm to go to bed in the evening.

Is this your first time presenting at JavaOne, or are you a JavaOne veteran?
It’s my fifth time being at JavaOne. I also presented in 2008 where I got a Rock Star award, of which I am very proud. And to this day, to my knowledge, I am the only fighter pilot in the known universe who also have been awarded JavaOne Rock Star! 😉

What are you going to talk about at JavaOne?
The session name “Create JavaFX Layouts Like a Boss” pretty much gives it away. I will focus on MigLayout as the tool, which I and Tom Eugelink has now readied for JavaFX 8. There will be a lot of general advice on how to make scalable and beautiful layouts. The intention is to raise the general – not-so-interested-about-visuals- developer well above ugly layouts without additional work. It will be fast-paced so don’t come there without ++coffee in your veins.

Do you have any big announcements or releases planned leading up to (or at) JavaOne? Can you give any hints?
I hope I will. Given the move towards simpler – and in that somewhat harder to figure out – GUI:s, it is recommended that one use subtle animations to convey intent. Animation is a great way to help the end user on the path to understanding the flow of your app. Unfortunately it’s not that easy to do UX-centric animations manually, even when the animation itself – the moving/fading part – is managed by the framework, like in JavaFX. My goal is to enable good looking animated transitions between layout changes just by adding the keyword “animate” to MigLayout. In >= 60fps. If I can’t make it ready in time I will pretend to faint 42 minutes into the presentation.

Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
My session might be funny. So come by if you like that kind of thing. If you don’t like funny, come by anyway and not laugh.

Thanks for taking time out of your day to answer these questions! All the best for your JavaOne talks!
Thank you Jonathan!

JavaOne Interviews: Eugene Ryzhikov

by Jonathan Giles | Aug 24, 2014 | Interviews

A while back I sent out an email to a few members of the JavaFX community, asking them if they would mind answering a few questions regarding their upcoming JavaOne talks. My goal was to have the interviews be short and to the point – just enough to whet your appetite to attend the sessions at JavaOne. It is my intention to publish these interviews over the next few weeks as we build up to JavaOne. Today is the first interview, with Eugene Ryzhikov. Enjoy! 🙂

For those new to this series, here are the people who have been interviewed so far:

• Eugene Ryzhikov
• Mikael Grev
• Stephen Chin
• David Grieve
• Carl Dea
• Johan Vos
• Hendrik Ebbers

Hi there. Thanks for taking the time to do this quick interview. Can you please introduce yourself?
My name is Eugene Ryzhikov. I’m a software architect at NextEra Energy in sunny Florida.

I’ve been involved with software development for at least 25 years now and still enjoying it! I work with a lot of programming languages but most of my time is spent doing Java and Scala. In the last 1.5 years I’ve been involved in ControlsFX project with Jonathan Giles.

Is this your first time presenting at JavaOne, or are you a JavaOne veteran?
I’ve attended JavaOne may times, but never presented.  Java One 2014 will be special – I will see the conference from the (unusual for me) speaker point of view.

What are you going to talk about at JavaOne?
Together with Jonathan we are going to talk about the ControlsFX library. We’ll examine many features, both old and new, show how to use it in your applications and provide some insights into the future plans.

Do you have any big announcements or releases planned leading up to (or at) JavaOne? Can you give any hints? 😉
May be.. I’d rather save those for our talk 🙂

Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?
I’ve been involved in open source projects for many years now, but I’m still amazed at what happens when many people come together to achieve some kind of goal. This is what is happening in ControlsFX now. We have approximately 55 committers, people who are passionate about JavaFX controls, and want to make a difference. They are an unstoppable driving force behind the library now, to the point that sometimes it is difficult to keep up with all the progress 🙂 This is amazing to watch and be part of.

Thanks Eugene – see you at JavaOne!