Colruyt Group hosts event for Belgian Java community
On 2 December 2024, Colruyt Group's site in Zwijnaarde was the backdrop for a gathering of the Belgian Java User Group. BeJUG wants to keep Java professionals across Belgium up-to-date of the latest evolutions in the Java ecosystem. With Simon Ritter as keynote speaker, Colruyt Group welcomed a true Java Champion.
The community for Belgian Java users
BeJUG was founded by Stephan Janssen in 1997. Today, it's still the platform for and by the Belgian Java community. Every Belgian Java developer is welcome to contribute. The aim of the organisation is to inform and inspire Java users in Belgium about the most recent evolutions in the programming language. Through monthly meetings with prominent speakers, BeJUG keeps a finger on the pulse of the rapidly changing Java ecosystem.
The edition of 2 December took place at the Colruyt Group site in Zwijnaarde. Some thirty (mainly external) software developers were hanging onto every word of the two guest speakers Badr Kacimi and Simon Ritter. The latter especially is a superstar in Java circles. A true 'Java Champion', a distinction for key figures in the international community.
"Colruyt Group up-to-date with the latest tech"
Nick Bauters, who takes care of community work for software developers at Colruyt Group, is active in BeJUG. He thought it was high time that Colruyt Group organised a BeJUG meeting: "Because Colruyt Group is completely up-to-date with the newest tech, and we shouldn't be afraid to show it."
Afterwards, Nick was impressed by the guest speakers. "Not only were the sessions fun, they were also really interesting for everyone who attended. And they confirmed what I was already convinced of for a long time. That Java is a truly modern programming language that moves with the times."
Interactive session with Simon Ritter
Simon Ritter is Chief Technical Officer at the renowned open source Java platform Azul. He says presenting for Java User Groups is one of the most fun parts of his job: "I highly appreciate it that people sacrifice their nights off to come listen to me."
His presentation was about Patterns in the Java programming language. "The idea behind Patterns is to simplify the code and at the same time make it more robust against errors", Simon says. "We've turned it into an interactive session, with a few puzzles we discussed together. I hope everyone eventually went home with new insights."
Colruyt Group is completely up-to-date with the newest tech, and we shouldn't be afraid to show it.
Continuous inspiration for 200 internal software engineers
Java is used a lot at the company and many of our digitisations were achieved thanks to the help of the programming language. The electronic price labels that are adjusted by means of price analyses? Java. The (smart) checkout systems? Java, of course. Everything regarding Xtra and Collect&Go? Java plays a huge part in that as well. That's why it's so important to continue to inspire the internal Java developers. There's about 200 of them.
"A large community we want to keep alive", Nick says. "We're not only doing this by means of a BeJUG evening session. We also organise internal Java days with speakers and practical lab exercises. We regularly have noon sessions, coding challenges and so on. Like this, we offer every software developer at Colruyt Group the opportunity to continue to learn the discipline."
