Encouraging more people to attend conferences

Rabea Gransberger: Yes, I do. There's a small local conference called the Java Forum Nord in Hanover, which is just one hour away by train. I always ask coworkers if they want to go there because it's a good conference for people who haven't been to a conference before.

Many people don't like the idea of going to conferences. It's just a different way of learning and I think everybody's very different in how they learn. Some people are intimidated by the atmosphere at conferences.

If you're going alone, for example, and you don't have anybody to talk with, I think it can be very overwhelming to see all those people running in different directions. Then at lunchtime, you're standing there alone. So, I think conferences aren't a good way for everybody to learn.

Geertjan Wielenga: What are some topics that you're currently beginning to explore?

Rabea Gransberger: I think that security-related topics are very important nowadays and I'm still busy implementing some stuff related to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in our applications. This is probably the main topic right now that I have to read up on. It's a huge amount of effort to actually implement, but I still think it's a good idea to give people back the power over the data that they're sharing.

Geertjan Wielenga: What does it mean to implement that in an application?

Rabea Gransberger: If you have a product and you're storing personal-related data, you have to have a report that says, "Okay, this is the personal-related data that we store about you."

You also have to say if you're sharing the data with any other companies. If the person wants their data to be deleted, you have to comply with that. In some parts of our application, we have to change the data structures we use to store the data in to be able to create reports more easily.

Geertjan Wielenga: When was the last time that you bought a tech book?

Rabea Gransberger: The last time I bought a tech book was last year. I bought the book from Paul Bakker and Sander Mak: Java 9 Modularity. But I don't buy that many books.

For me, I don't think it makes any sense to have a very deep knowledge, which I get from books, about things that I'm probably not going to use in the near future. I only read books about things that I'm trying to use as I'm starting to use them or if I want to learn more about the things I enjoyed using previously. Other than that, it's important for me to have a broad basic knowledge to be able to choose the areas I want to learn about in more detail.

Geertjan Wielenga: What would the younger version of yourself think about what you do now?

Rabea Gransberger: I would never have thought that I would be leading a team because I've always had problems talking to people. I'm proud of what I'm doing today and what I've achieved over the last few years. I've not only learned about software development, but also how to deal with people and how to talk with people. I think that's very important. I'm dealing with people and not with resources, so I can't only see them as work resources.

I've met many people who started to study psychology and then changed to computer science. This seems to be a pattern, at least in Germany.

Geertjan Wielenga: What's the connection between the two?

Rabea Gransberger: I think that, often, computer science people don't feel like they fit in with today's society.

They're probably trying to find out why they're different, so they go into psychology.

Through their studies, they learn that they should just do what they love to do and find other people who have the same thoughts. They meet them and then they build up their own micro-society of people.

Geertjan Wielenga: Thank you, Rabea Gransberger.