GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech Spring Then & Now: What’s Next? • Rod Johnson, Arjen Poutsma & Trisha Gee
29 snips
Feb 20, 2026 
Arjen Poutsma, longtime Spring contributor who built core features, and Rod Johnson, Spring founder now building agent frameworks, join Trisha Gee. They debate Spring’s evolution, reactive vs virtual threads, AOT/GraalVM work, agent tooling like Mbabel, Java language changes, modulith vs microservices, and AI/data-privacy tradeoffs. Short, lively conversation packed with practical tech perspectives.
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Java Evolution Drives Framework Change
- Java language and JVM evolution shape Spring APIs and developer experience significantly.
- Spring actively tracks Java features (annotations, generics, functional APIs) and adapts its APIs accordingly.
From Ignored To Consulted By Java Team
- Rod recalled how Spring struggled for attention from the old JVM team but now the Java team engages with framework authors.
- That improved collaboration helps align JVM improvements with Spring needs.
Dogfood Your Sample Apps
- Dogfood agent-enabled apps as real useful tools, not just demos, to produce more practical examples.
- Use sample apps that are also genuinely helpful to reveal real-world integration patterns.
