As developers, we spend a lot of time learning to write code, while spending little to no time learning to read code. Meanwhile, we often spend more time reading code than actually writing it. Shouldn’t we be spending at least the same amount of time and effort improving this skill? Deliberate practice can help us get better at reading code. Learning how to better read and understand code, can in turn teach us what makes code readable. This might even help us to write code that is easier to read.

In this talk we will discuss the benefits of deliberately practicing reading code in a code reading club or session without an IDE, as well as common strategies to navigate a new codebase and familiarise ourselves with the code using the IDE.

Maven is an ubiquitous build tool in the Java ecosystem, some even claim it’s the de facto standard build tool. Configuring Maven is deceptively simple, after all it’s just a matter of writing XML, isn’t it? Things look differently when the rubber meets the road. One must know the intricacies of the build lifecycle; how plugins, goals (mojos), and phases come together; rules for dependency resolution; configuration inheritance between parent – child POM files; enhancing the build with profiles; and more. That’s a lot to keep track of. Fortunately modern IDEs like IntelliJ IDEA provide great support to configure and run Maven, with code completion, navigation, custom run configurations, and more.

Come learn how both tools can be used together for better results in your daily work.