A short personal recap of 2025

I started The Main Thread almost as an experiment. A place to think out loud about Java, architecture, and what happens when AI meets enterprise reality. It quickly became more than that. A steady rhythm of writing. A growing group of readers. And many thoughtful conversations that continued far beyond the comment section.

The main themes were clear. Modern Java is not about chasing frameworks. It is about build time thinking, clear architecture, and operational sanity. Quarkus, Jakarta EE, and LangChain4j showed up a lot. So did topics like AI guardrails, local models, agent design, and why boring code is often the right choice when systems get complex.

Joining IBM added another layer. I had the opportunity to help shape how modern Java is presented and supported in real enterprise environments. Less theory. More constraints. More long term thinking. That perspective influenced almost everything I wrote this year.

Travel was part of the journey. Quite literally. Over 41,000 kilometers, talks, conferences, and meetups. What stuck with me most was not the stages, but the hallway conversations. The honest questions. The shared doubts. The quiet confidence that the Java community still knows how to evolve without losing itself.

I also learned a lot myself. Writing forces clarity. Community feedback forces humility. Both are healthy. And I also wrote a book.

Looking ahead, 2026 will be about agents. Not hype driven demos, but real systems. Memory, boundaries, orchestration, failure modes. I am deep into a new book on AI agents, focused on practical architectures and the technologies that actually matter. Expect more on agent frameworks, local inference, structured outputs, and the boring but essential parts like validation and governance.

On the personal side, life happened too. The good, the chaotic, the exhausting, and the joyful. Growth moments for the kids. Big steps toward independence. A house modernization that involved two containers full of old things and a surprising sense of relief. Some plans worked out. Some did not. That is fine.

I am grateful. For the trust. For the discussions. For people showing up to talks, reading long articles, and sending thoughtful messages.

Thank you for being part of this year. I am curious where the next one takes us.

Markus