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I have put myself forward for the JCP (Java Community Process) elections in order to participate in the Executive Committee.
To be honest, I have little experience in political and I know at this time, many of you will be feeling jaded about the real politics.
However, this issue is about the future of Java. Being a part of the JCP means that I can influence the direction on your behalf.
For you to vote for me, therefore, you need to know about me and my ulterior motives. Because everyone has one, if they claim that they don’t have one, then call them out, because they are mostly telling lies or being contrite by hiding the truth.

I am an independent contractor, I have my own UK Limited Company. I typically contract for large e-commerce client helping them migrate legacy Java EE applications or update them from Java 6/7 to Java 8. I have also worked with Scala, especially at the Home Office for GOV.UK. However, that is not the full story, I could also rant and rave about Agile adoption, SCRUM-but, the lack of precision in user stories. Why is user story not a sprint task? I have experienced dysfunctional organisation, including lack of testability, security and culture. These things have nothing to do Java and the enterprise, but they are associated, because all work inside a commercial field called information technology.

In terms of community involvement, I used to be a Java User Group leader. Indeed, I found the JAVAWUG inside a Waxy O’Connors pub in Piccadilly London in May 2004. The JAVAWUG started when Apache Struts ruled the roost and grew to a popular brand. We had scores of presentations and meet up from 2004 to 2010. We were hosted by Oracle London and then Skills Master. Being a JUG Leader was the introduction to the wider community. Simultaneously, I started travelling to Java conferences such as JavaOne. I was one of the first JUG leader to grab a camcorder and upload the presentations to Google Video service and then later to Vimeo. I also became a speaker at conference. I blogged a lot. Eventually, other notable folk in the Java world noticed my contributions, I was elected Java Champion in 2007.

When I saw the announcement Executive Committee Elections Nominees I felt the time had come to make deep contribution to the Java world. We have come off a hard week as I write, there needs to be diversity in the world, and why not have black voice. There is nothing racial, nothing of creed, nothing of sexuality in pure mathematics, which underpins computer science. It is us as human being that provide interpretations of those numbers. I want to provide a dose of realpolitik to the Java world to ensure the technology, the community and direction is universal to all and accessible to all. Most of all, I want to ensure that we can secure our employment in the future, our recruit-ability, our further education and most of all that we gain the respect from those individual outside our professions of software developers, designers and architects.

All the best

+PP+

November 2016

References:
1) Introduction to the JCP
2) Executive Committee
3) Trade unions