For this month’s Vaadin Community Spotlight I interviewed Jorge Salazar, a Java Developer with 10 years of experience, who works for Pyxis, a Latin American company specializing in software development and IT services. Jorge lives in Uruguay where he not only is a member of the software development team at Pyxis, but also an entrepreneur, being the co-founder of Guayoyo Labs, a startup focused on Security Ops services. Jorge has been successfully using Vaadin Framework for some years now. Let’s find out his thoughts about it!
Hi, Jorge, it’s great to speak with you! Let’s start with some Java ecosystem related questions. What Java frameworks and libraries do you use in your projects? I guess Vaadin is one of those, right?
Hi Alejandro, of course, Vaadin is one of them! And I have used many other frameworks and libraries throughout this time. For example EJB, Swing, JavaFX, Play Framework, Apache Camel, Apache Solr, Apache Wicket, Hibernate, among others. But I am currently in love with Vaadin + Spring.
That's good to hear! Do you think Spring + Vaadin is a good match?
Yes, I’m using Vaadin and Spring right now in HowlerMonkey, a Guayoyo Labs project. Vaadin for the front end and Spring for the back end (Spring Security, Spring Data, Spring Boot). It has given us an excellent result. It’s very easy to integrate both technologies.
How long have you been using Vaadin so far?
I started using Vaadin about 8 years ago when a colleague and a friend of mine suggested using Vaadin for building a web application for vehicles management. Since then, I have always been using it when I need to work on a web project. UI is not my strength, I'm mostly a backend developer. That is why Vaadin is a great ally for me.
Was it easy to get started with Vaadin back then? How much time did you spend building the app?
Yes, it was definitively the best option. At the time, we didn’t have experience developing web applications with Java. It took us 3 months to build the application. And we were only 2 developers!
Awesome! How about the community and documentation?
The documentation is very good, the Book of Vaadin has helped me a lot. The community is also very useful. You can always find someone who shares relevant information or gives you a hand to solve a particular problem. However, I would like the Vaadin community to grow in Latin America, to have more presence and more people participating in it.
Why do you think Vaadin is not that popular over there when compared to Europe, for example?
I don't know exactly, but I’d dare say it’s out of ignorance. Because I’ve had the opportunity to show the potential of Vaadin to my colleagues, and they are always positively surprised! Most of them have heard the name Vaadin, but have no idea what it is for. Vaadin should be promoted at events, user groups, and meetups in the region.
I see... additionally, I think there are many non-developers making technical decisions (such as which technology to use) and also some devs might think Vaadin is not stable, good, or mature enough, ignoring that Vaadin has been out there for more than 15 years now!
Yes, that’s also true!
Have you published any Vaadin add-ons?
No, I haven’t published any yet. Usually, when I have an idea for a useful add-on, someone else has already done it! For example, I am currently using Vaadin Charts, Vaadin Board, Vaadin Spring, Vaadin Spring Boot, searchbox, ConfirmDialog, Viritin, and Material Icons.
Cool! Having add-ons developed by the community is one of the nice things about Vaadin in my opinion. Alright... is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Well, congratulations for the great work that Vaadin is doing. We hope the community continues to grow, especially in Latin America.