I believe that attending an instructor-led course is the best way to boost Java skills. No online course can compare with live learning, when when you work in a group of like-minded people, ask questions and learn from industry practitioners. And of course, traveling is always fun!

Below is the list of practical, effective Java training courses that I have personally attended and enjoyed.

Effective Java Software Design (🏅)

Audience: Java developers, architects, team leaders Location: Riga, Stockholm, and Berlin Date: September/October Duration: 2 days

👉 TLDR: This is the absolutely the best Java training I have ever attended.

Effective Java Software Design was above expectations and my expectations were very high. Thanks to Eduards, who was full of energy and inspiration, I learned about amazing patterns, frameworks, and libraries that I now use at my daily work.

I attended the course with my team lead and he enjoyed it, too. I have three years of practical Java experience, he has 10+.

Everything was extremely practical, including in-class exercises and group discussions. I've got a fresh look at how I write code, from simple tasks to making high-level architecture decisions. We covered effective Java coding principles and patterns, Spring Boot, Hibernate, DDD, Functional Programming, Testing, Clean Code, Architecture, and many important topics.

I still use Eduard's slides as an inspiring example of excellently written code.

Effective Java is a must-visit course. Skip at your own peril. 👨‍💻

Crafting Code by Sandro Mancuso

Audience: Java developers Location: Varies Date: Varies Duration: 2 days

Crafting Code is a course that will teach you how to write clean code using test-driven development approach. I attended the course at the great DevTernity conference in 2017 and loved it.

Sandro has taught me how to write clean code that is easy to understand and maintain. I have become more comfortable with Test-Driven Development (TDD) and learned how to use the "Outside-In" TDD approach to design and build my codebase. Highly recommended!

Spring Framework by Evgeny Borisov

Audience: Java developers Location: Varies Date: Varies Duration: 2 days

Spring is the most popular application development framework for enterprise Java. Millions of developers around the world use Spring Framework to create high performing, easily testable, reusable code.

For many developers, including me, Spring was sort of magic. That's why Eugene drills down deep to Spring source code and explains not only how to use Spring, but how it works under the hood.

Eugene is a very energetic and pragmatic trainer. I like that the workshop has almost zero theory. Instead, guided by Evgeny, you go into source code and see how things work. Really good training!

Java and JVM Performance Workshop

Audience: Java and DevOps professionals Location: Varies Date: Varies Duration: 2 days

JVM Performance is the training that you need to attend if you work on high-performance applications.

Kirk has taught me solid techniques to get to the bottom of any performance regression fast. The workshop has provided me with a deep understanding of how the JVM works along with tooling needed to fully characterize performance regressions.

You will work on exercises that contain real problems often seen in real production environments.

JVM Performance is the course that you will have wished you had attended when your boss is breathing down your neck asking why your Java application is slow :)

Writing Concurrent Code With Lock-Free Algorithms

Audience: Hard-core Java developers Location: Varies Date: Varies Duration: 3 days

Writing Concurrent Code With Lock-Free Algorithms is a hard-core training for Java developers who want to master Java concurrency.

Backed by many years of hard-won experience, Martin has created a truly inspiring and challenging course for Java programmers interested in building low-latency, high-throughput systems.

Martin has taught me how to build code that reaches world-class performance levels. By the end of this course, I acquired an in-depth knowledge of concurrent programming that let me effectively use and build data structures such as collections, queues, executors. I also learned a lot about performance profiling.

Summary

So, you have the ultimate list of five awesome Java courses to choose from:

• Effective Java Software Design ❤️
• Crafting Code
• Spring Framework
• JVM Performance
• Writing Concurrent Code With Lock-Free Algorithms

Make a choice, then ask your manager for permission and a budget. Here is the template:

I want to attend _ _ _ _ _ on _ _ _ _ _. It costs _ _ _ _ _.
The benefits for the project and the company: _ _ _ _ _.
This course is the best, because _ _ _ _ _.
I considered the following alternatives: _ _ _ _ _.
The timing is good for the team and the project, because _ _ _ _ _.
While I am away, _ _ _ _ _ will be replacing me.
When I am back, I will share the lessons learned with _ _ _ _ _ by creating a _ _ _ _ _.

Enjoy!