Romanian developer's journey from 486 computers to Transylvania Java User Group, early programming with Turbo Pascal at age 9-10, playing games like Jazz Jackrabbit and Prince of Persia, influence of Star Trek and science fiction on career choice, mathematics olympiads participation, computer science high school education, learning C and FoxPro, Java vs .net ecosystem in Romania during 2000s, Microsoft's university infiltration strategy, first Java exposure with version 1.4, Siemens internship on telecommunications servers, neighborhood network building projects, working without home internet until 2005-2006, nearshoring company experience, EJB and Spring framework with XML configuration, master's studies at Johannes Kepler University Linz 2008-2011, working with fabasoft on observability systems, .NET development for two years with C#, attributes vs annotations comparison, Java ME micro edition development, implementing DTOs and service architectures, agile methodology adoption, iterative development practices, data gravity concept from Ruby on Rails, working for Uniqa with WebMethods, brueckner Group spin-off developing industrial software, DevOps implementation with Jenkins and Git, choosing between Mercurial and Git version control, Broadridge financial technology work, stock exchange monitoring systems, low-latency Java implementations, Mechanical Sympathy and Disruptor pattern, taking over Java User Group from Gabi Pop, managing Java Advent Calendar for 15 years, WordPress to Java migration plans using Roq/Rook quarkus, transition from coding to management roles, challenging microservices adoption, modular monolith advocacy, Java verbosity improvements and scripting capabilities, young developers returning to Java, typescript developers discovering Java patterns, IoT projects with daughter, science experiments automation, Romanian tech scene evolution, Cluj coffee culture and steampunk bars

Olimpiu Pop on twitter: @olimpiupop