This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club.
http://gotopia.tech/bookclub
A N M Bazlur Rahman - Java Champion & Author of "Modern Concurrency in Java"
Michael Redlich - Java Champion & Lead Java Queue News Editor at InfoQ
Check out more here:
https://gotopia.tech/episodes/443
RESOURCES
Bazlur
https://bsky.app/profile/bazlur.ca
https://x.com/bazlur_rahman
https://github.com/rokon12
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bazlur
https://bio.site/bazlur
https://bazlur.ca
Michael
https://twitter.com/mpredli
https://github.com/mpredli01
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-redlich-13a966
https://about.me/mpredli
DESCRIPTION
In this GOTO Book Club episode, Java Champion A N M Bazlur Rahman joins host and fellow Java Champion Michael Redlich to discuss Modern Concurrency in Java — the first comprehensive update to Java concurrency literature in 20 years. Bazlur traces his motivation to the arrival of virtual threads in JDK 21, which he describes as a fundamental shift in Java's concurrency cost model: platform threads were expensive and scarce, demanding careful pooling; virtual threads are cheap, plentiful, and behave like ordinary threads from the developer's perspective, without requiring a new programming model. The book covers this evolution end-to-end, from the history of threads through to structured concurrency, scope values, and the modern frameworks that have already adopted virtual threads — most with a single config change.
The conversation also takes a nuanced look at reactive programming's future. Bazlur's conclusion is that reactive remains compelling in specific contexts — event-driven streaming systems, architectures needing end-to-end back-pressure — but it's no longer the default answer to scalability. For most microservices doing blocking I/O, virtual threads are now the stronger default, and reactive becomes a deliberate architectural choice rather than an automatic one. The book's goal is to give developers both the conceptual grounding and the practical guidance to make that choice confidently — understanding the tool one level deep, so they can design better systems, not just configure their way through a framework.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
A N M Bazlur Rahman • Modern Concurrency in Java • https://amzn.to/42w8cOk
Ben Evans & Jim Gough • Optimizing Cloud Native Java • https://amzn.to/41nivD9
Ben Evans, Jason Clark & David Flanagan • Java in a Nutshell • https://amzn.to/43FDoMA
Ian F. Darwin • Java Cookbook 5th ed. • https://amzn.to/3QH0NZy
Victor Grazi & Jeanne Boyarsky • Real-World Java • https://amzn.to/4oCEeBR
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