I have been eyeing the YOW!  conferences for probably more than a decade. They occur in Australia,  and feature top industry experts. I was thus overjoyed when they invited  me to speak on the YOW! tour earlier this year. Here's a summary of my  amazing time there. YOW! My participation YOW! takes place in three different cities:]Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sidney. I presented my brand new talk on WebAssembly on Kubernetes in each city. It stems from an earlier article, which I reworked and updated. YOW! will probably release the video soon. WebAssembly on Kubernetes earlier article In the meantime, here's the plan as a spoiler: Understanding WebAssembly
WebAssembly in its own words
Different actors of the WebAssembly-Cloud ecosystem
The demo. In case you're interested, you can check the GitHub repo, but note that the README is mostly for me.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Conclusion Understanding WebAssembly WebAssembly in its own words Different actors of the WebAssembly-Cloud ecosystem The demo. In case you're interested, you can check the GitHub repo, but note that the README is mostly for me. GitHub repo README The good, the bad, and the ugly Conclusion Regular readers of this blog know my continued interest in OpenTelemetry. I also had the pleasure of leading a one-day masterclass on OpenTelemetry in Melbourne. OpenTelemetry is an amazing tool to observe your information system and get continuous insight from it. my continued interest OpenTelemetry masterclass on OpenTelemetry In the class, I taught attendees OpenTelemetry by alternating between  theory and four labs of real practice. At the end of the day, they had a  good grasp of OpenTelemetry, how to generate metrics, logs, and traces  across the JVM, Python, and NodeJS, and how to store these in the LGTM stack. Other talks Beside my own talk and the masterclass, I also attended other  speakers' talks. Here are some of them in no particular order, along  with my summary and my opinion. Java Container Mastery: Optimizing Images Across Build Tools by Matthias Haeussler:
Matthias is a good friend since a couple of years, and he told me we  generally have very similar talks. This one follows the rule, but I  wanted to check if things had changed since I presented on it. In this  talk, he explains the different ways to create a JVM application in  Docker:]adding a JAR to a base JRE, using a multi-stage build,  leveraging Cloud-Native buildpacks, and compiling to native with  GraalVM.
I advise you to watch the talk once YOW! releases it on its YouTube channel, as it gives a good overview of all options, and their respective pros and cons.


Pushing Java to the Limits: Processing a Billion Rows in Under 2 Seconds by Roy van Rijn:
Last year, around Christmas, Gunnar Morling challenged Java  developers. Given a file of one billion rows, how fast can you ingest  it?]In the talk, Roy described the challenge in details, as well as what  its strategy was, and how well he fared. For a full description, or if  you want to participate in the challenge for fun, check the GitHub repo.
Fun fact: Thomas Würthinger, of GraalVM fame, participated in the challenge. He came in second, so he hired the one developer who beat him.
It wasn't mentioned in the talk, but I'm very happy that my former boss and friend, Jaromir Hamala, finished third.


The Past, Present and Future of Programming Languages by Kevlin Henney:
The talk lists "popular" languages according to a couple of reports,  and proceeds to analyze how they found themselves in the top.  Interestingly enough, there's quite a strong correlation between the age  of a language and its place in the top 10. It seems that languages have  inertia in the ecosystem.
I never thought about this, but it's a very astute observation.


Conceptualisation by Michael Feathers:
The speaker introduces a Payment class that conflates payment and tax  responsibilities. Most developers would naturally split the class in  two:]one class for payment, and one for taxation. But perhaps the  problem lies elsewhere?]What if the issue was that the designer didn't  find the right word to name the class?
Follows very interesting thoughts on naming, semantics, and the lack  of words to describe some concepts in certain languages. The speaker  ended the talk with some consideration about LLMs, which I found much  less interesting, but I understand the reasons behind the mention.


The C4 Model - Beyond The Basics by Simon Brown:
The C4 model is an architectural diagramming tool, invented by the  speaker. I never used it myself, as UML covers more than most of my  needs, but it's pretty popular. I wanted to check what usages the author  recommended, and there were plenty.
The speaker is soon to release a book with O'Reilly, so I won't disclose anything further. Java Container Mastery: Optimizing Images Across Build Tools by Matthias Haeussler:
Matthias is a good friend since a couple of years, and he told me we  generally have very similar talks. This one follows the rule, but I  wanted to check if things had changed since I presented on it. In this  talk, he explains the different ways to create a JVM application in  Docker:]adding a JAR to a base JRE, using a multi-stage build,  leveraging Cloud-Native buildpacks, and compiling to native with  GraalVM.
I advise you to watch the talk once YOW! releases it on its YouTube channel, as it gives a good overview of all options, and their respective pros and cons. Java Container Mastery: Optimizing Images Across Build Tools by Matthias Haeussler: Matthias Haeussler Matthias is a good friend since a couple of years, and he told me we  generally have very similar talks. This one follows the rule, but I  wanted to check if things had changed since I presented on it. In this  talk, he explains the different ways to create a JVM application in  Docker:]adding a JAR to a base JRE, using a multi-stage build,  leveraging Cloud-Native buildpacks, and compiling to native with  GraalVM. I advise you to watch the talk once YOW! releases it on its YouTube channel, as it gives a good overview of all options, and their respective pros and cons. YouTube channel Pushing Java to the Limits: Processing a Billion Rows in Under 2 Seconds by Roy van Rijn:
Last year, around Christmas, Gunnar Morling challenged Java  developers. Given a file of one billion rows, how fast can you ingest  it?]In the talk, Roy described the challenge in details, as well as what  its strategy was, and how well he fared. For a full description, or if  you want to participate in the challenge for fun, check the GitHub repo.
Fun fact: Thomas Würthinger, of GraalVM fame, participated in the challenge. He came in second, so he hired the one developer who beat him.
It wasn't mentioned in the talk, but I'm very happy that my former boss and friend, Jaromir Hamala, finished third. Pushing Java to the Limits: Processing a Billion Rows in Under 2 Seconds by Roy van Rijn: Roy van Rijn Last year, around Christmas, Gunnar Morling challenged Java  developers. Given a file of one billion rows, how fast can you ingest  it?]In the talk, Roy described the challenge in details, as well as what  its strategy was, and how well he fared. For a full description, or if  you want to participate in the challenge for fun, check the GitHub repo. GitHub repo Fun fact: Thomas Würthinger, of GraalVM fame, participated in the challenge. He came in second, so he hired the one developer who beat him. Thomas Würthinger It wasn't mentioned in the talk, but I'm very happy that my former boss and friend, Jaromir Hamala, finished third. The Past, Present and Future of Programming Languages by Kevlin Henney:
The talk lists "popular" languages according to a couple of reports,  and proceeds to analyze how they found themselves in the top.  Interestingly enough, there's quite a strong correlation between the age  of a language and its place in the top 10. It seems that languages have  inertia in the ecosystem.
I never thought about this, but it's a very astute observation. The Past, Present and Future of Programming Languages by Kevlin Henney: Kevlin Henney The talk lists "popular" languages according to a couple of reports,  and proceeds to analyze how they found themselves in the top.  Interestingly enough, there's quite a strong correlation between the age  of a language and its place in the top 10. It seems that languages have  inertia in the ecosystem. I never thought about this, but it's a very astute observation. Conceptualisation by Michael Feathers:
The speaker introduces a Payment class that conflates payment and tax  responsibilities. Most developers would naturally split the class in  two:]one class for payment, and one for taxation. But perhaps the  problem lies elsewhere?]What if the issue was that the designer didn't  find the right word to name the class?
Follows very interesting thoughts on naming, semantics, and the lack  of words to describe some concepts in certain languages. The speaker  ended the talk with some consideration about LLMs, which I found much  less interesting, but I understand the reasons behind the mention. Conceptualisation by Michael Feathers: Michael Feathers The speaker introduces a Payment class that conflates payment and tax  responsibilities. Most developers would naturally split the class in  two:]one class for payment, and one for taxation. But perhaps the  problem lies elsewhere?]What if the issue was that the designer didn't  find the right word to name the class? Follows very interesting thoughts on naming, semantics, and the lack  of words to describe some concepts in certain languages. The speaker  ended the talk with some consideration about LLMs, which I found much  less interesting, but I understand the reasons behind the mention. The C4 Model - Beyond The Basics by Simon Brown:
The C4 model is an architectural diagramming tool, invented by the  speaker. I never used it myself, as UML covers more than most of my  needs, but it's pretty popular. I wanted to check what usages the author  recommended, and there were plenty.
The speaker is soon to release a book with O'Reilly, so I won't disclose anything further. The C4 Model - Beyond The Basics by Simon Brown: Simon Brown The C4 model is an architectural diagramming tool, invented by the  speaker. I never used it myself, as UML covers more than most of my  needs, but it's pretty popular. I wanted to check what usages the author  recommended, and there were plenty. The speaker is soon to release a book with O'Reilly, so I won't disclose anything further. book with O'Reilly Though I did attend other talks, I'm afraid I was too jet lagged to retain anything useful. Thanks On top of the conference, the organizers made sure we tourists had tons of fun in additional activities. I'd like to express my thanks to the amazing YOW! organizers, Sabine Wolf, Damian Maclennan, Tracy Chen, and all track hosts and volunteers. It was an amazing experience! Sabine Wolf Damian Maclennan Tracy Chen Originally published at A Java Geek on December 14th, 2025 Originally published at A Java Geek on December 14th, 2025 A Java Geek

Arweave

YouTube

A Rust Ownership Tutorial: Clone and Copy, Mutating Data, and More

Read all my posts!

I Finally Made It to YOW!

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

10 Essential Java Libraries - How Essential Are They Really?

4 Things We Learned From 15,945 Reviews of Australian ISPs

A general analysis of the bike-sharing opportunity in Australia

A Majority of Aussies Not Motivated to Pursue Content Further After Facing Blocked Pirate Sites

Aleksandar Svetski Is A Stateless Freedom Maximalist; Will Not Bend

Anti-Censorship Activists Should be Paying Attention to Australia Right Now

10 Essential Java Libraries - How Essential Are They Really?

4 Things We Learned From 15,945 Reviews of Australian ISPs

A general analysis of the bike-sharing opportunity in Australia

A Majority of Aussies Not Motivated to Pursue Content Further After Facing Blocked Pirate Sites

Aleksandar Svetski Is A Stateless Freedom Maximalist; Will Not Bend

Anti-Censorship Activists Should be Paying Attention to Australia Right Now

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Minty

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps