This session reviews the 20-year evolution of Java annotations, highlighting their widespread use and the challenges developers face. It introduces the Java Annotations Repo (JAPO) as a solution to these challenges, and concludes with a demo showcasing JAPO Plugin for IntelliJ and addressing common developer use cases.

This session explains how 20 years have passed since the introduction of annotations in Java and how they became very powerful due to their widespread adoption by several libraries and frameworks.

However, with such popularity, a few common challenges, started to arise and faced by Java developers. We will discuss those challenges, which will then bring us to the introduction of Java Annotations Repo, a tool designed to help developers face these challenges. JAPO is currently offered mainly as a REST API, while also offering an access through a webpage, and most conveniently through a plugin for the most popular IDE of the market (Jetbrains IntelliJ IDEA).

We will finish this session with a demo of JAPO Plugin for IntelliJ, during which we will be exploring the very common use cases and scenarios, every java developer goes thru in their day to day tasks, when they deal with annotations. Some of the use cases also demonstrate how JAPO currently makes limited use of AI.

While the developers of JAPO currently focus on annotations, the ultimate goal is to start developing automated or assistant tools, with or without AI integration, and which can greatly benefit Java developers and change their approach or view of the language.

Target audience: Java developers of all levels.