preface

We (Martin and Jan) are both software developers with a long-lasting passion for Java, open source software, and creating tools and frameworks that other developers will enjoy using. As employees of Red Hat, the main company behind Quarkus, we have been involved with Quarkus since its very early stages, and it has made us very happy to see how Quarkus has been pushing boundaries, making Java still highly relevant for development despite its very long history—the first Java version was released in 1995. People have proclaimed Java dead countless times, but it’s still here and going strong, not just out of inertia, but it’s still developing and adopting modern practices, especially the move toward cloud-native and serverless computing. Quarkus is one of the main catalysts that help Java (and JVM languages in general) keep moving forward, and we strongly believe in its potential to become a ubiquitous tool in the enterprise Java ecosystem. So, apart from promoting it in various ways online and at conferences, we decided to write a book about it, and it is the first such endeavor for both of us. It was daunting at first, but working together daily with many of the minds behind Quarkus was a great asset that made it easier.