What Occurred At JNation 2026

JNation Convention is a software program growth occasion held yearly in Coimbra, Portugal, that covers numerous matters related to the software program growth business.

This yr the convention targeted on a number of key topics, closely emphasizing the intersection of contemporary software program engineering with synthetic intelligence, alongside deep dives into Java, frontend growth, and structure. As such, the first themes have been:

1. Synthetic intelligence and Agentic workflows have been probably the most dominant subject throughout the convention, transferring past fundamental chatbots to give attention to AI brokers and human-agent collaboration. That included:

Agent protocols & integration
Technical deep dives into how AI brokers talk and use instruments, that includes protocols just like the Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent-to-Agent (A2A).

AI-assisted coding
Sensible comparisons of frameworks like LangChain4j and Spring AI for constructing LLM-powered functions, in addition to discussions on the real-world efficiency and pitfalls of AI-generated code.

AI safety & society
Superior classes on hacking LLMs by way of immediate injection and knowledge exfiltration, alongside keynote discussions on how AI will impression jobs, human loneliness, and the way forward for society.

2. Java and the JVM Ecosystem. As a Java-centric convention, there was important give attention to the evolution of the language and its runtimes with talks on:

Java 25 reinvention
Exploring how Java has adopted fashionable programming options like sample matching, digital threads, structured concurrency, and the Overseas Operate & Reminiscence (FFM) API to compete with newer languages.

JVM efficiency & startup
Methods to attain “warp velocity” JVM startup and warmup utilizing Venture Leyden, Class Information Sharing (CDS), GraalVM Native Picture, and CRaC.

Frameworks in manufacturing:
Classes realized from operating Quarkus in manufacturing, and the introduction of the brand new Spring Boot 4 and Spring AI modules.

3. Frontend and Internet Improvement. The frontend ecosystem was explored by the lens of efficiency, structure, and person expertise:

Framework evolution
A have a look at the way forward for reactivity, evaluating the philosophies of React, Strong, and Svelte, and introducing new fine-grained reactivity frameworks like Ripple.

Micro frontends
The professionals, cons, and architectural methods (vertical vs. horizontal) for breaking apart monolithic frontend functions utilizing micro frontends.

Accessibility & tooling
Sensible guides on making internet functions actually accessible (particularly advanced flows like authentication), and understanding the deep mechanics of sourcemaps and stacktraces for debugging.

There have been additionally talks on software program structure, infrastructure, and FinOps, on safety and cryptography with post-quantum cryptography and verifiable credentials, and at last on engineering management and profession development past code.

Would wish to be there however missed it? No worries as now you can watch on demand because the classes are actually out there on-line. Becuase there’s numerous materials to undergo, we did a little bit of digging to counsel the perfect to look at first.

The next three talks supplied notably distinctive, contrarian, or extremely revolutionary views in comparison with the remainder of the convention program.

1. “AI brokers gained’t save your productiveness–human–agent collaboration will” by Sven Peters.
Whereas many talks on the convention targeted on learn how to construct AI brokers, this speak stood out by difficult the advertising hype surrounding them. Peters identified that regardless of distributors claiming AI writes 80% to 90% of code, precise productiveness beneficial properties within the business have plateaued at round 10% to fifteen%.

He highlighted that producing code is affordable, however builders spend 84% of their time doing issues apart from coding, and producing huge quantities of “AI slop” simply creates a large cognitive load for the people who should assessment it. As an alternative of focusing purely on coding velocity, Peters confirmed how true productiveness comes from utilizing AI to get rid of wait occasions and organizational bottlenecks, comparable to utilizing AI to do the primary cross on pull request critiques or creating brokers that write take a look at plans so builders do not have to attend on QA engineers.

2. “WebAssembly and the Way forward for the JVM Ecosystem” by Andrea Peruffo.
This speak stood out on account of its mind-bending technical achievements. Peruffo demonstrated learn how to run C, C++, and Rust applications immediately contained in the Java Digital Machine with out utilizing clunky native bindings like JNI.

He showcased the open supply challenge Chicory (which he introduced is transferring to the Bytecode Alliance beneath the brand new identify “Endive”), a runtime that takes WebAssembly binaries and compiles them immediately into pure Java bytecode. The sensible functions of this are huge. For instance, Peruffo confirmed how the Quarkus group changed a 400MB native Protobuf compiler dependency with a 1.3MB pure Java library by compiling the C++ protoc instrument to WebAssembly, after which to Java. He additionally demonstrated operating the QuickJS JavaScript engine natively inside Java to permit secure, untrusted plugin execution.

3. “This was a speak about AI” by Sara Vieira
Vieira’s speak was extremely memorable as a result of she purposefully deserted her unique AI subject to give attention to one thing enjoyable. She defined that researching her deliberate AI speak made her depressed because of the exorbitant prices of native AI {hardware} and the moral problems with tech corporations scraping open-source data to promote it again as a subscription.

Deciding the viewers wanted a break from the AI hype, she pivoted dwell to construct a 3D Arkanoid-style online game within the browser. Utilizing React Three Fiber and the Rapier physics engine, she walked the viewers by the mathematics, physics, and debugging required to construct a recreation with transferring paddles, bouncing balls, and destructible enemies, proving that internet growth can nonetheless simply be about constructing enjoyable issues.

Whereas these have been probably the most fascinating talks, that is not all as there have been many different nice classes. So, take your time and delve into the convention by going by its YouTube playlist.

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