The InfoQ Podcast From Java EE to Quarkus and LLMs: Adam Bien’s Playbook for Boring, Future‑Proof Systems
May 11, 2026
Adam Bien, independent Java consultant known for minimal dependencies and BCE patterns. He discusses choosing Quarkus for fast startup and cloud cost savings. He explains how BCE and standards make systems long-lived and LLMs better at code generation. He also covers modularizing monoliths, local inference options, and practical observability tips.
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Choose Standards And Zero Dependencies
- Do prefer standards and minimal dependencies when building enterprise Java systems to reduce future maintenance and migration work.
- Adam Bien moved many legacy projects with almost no changes to Quarkus because they followed Java/Jakarta specs and had zero external dependencies.
Three Day Migration From Legacy To Quarkus
- Bien describes migrating an old JNDI-heavy project to Quarkus in about three days with two people.
- The migration was mostly mechanical because the original project followed consistent Java standards with no external frameworks.
Specifications Make LLMs Reliable
- LLMs perform much better when grounded in stable, well-documented specs like Java EE/Jakarta EE because they were trained on those texts.
- Bien grounds prompts against the spec and uses ~100 rule lines to avoid hallucinations and produce code matching his style.