Hi, Spring fans! Welcome to another wild-and-wacky week of This Week in Spring! I’m in Johannesburg, South Africa, where I both spoke at the SpringOne Tour South Africa event and at the Johannesburg Java User Group. I have had tons of fun on safari visiting (safely from a great distance and in an SUV) the utterly astonishing, beautiful, majestic wildlife here. I can’t stress that last part enough. The animals here are so, so, SO breathtaking. I got as close as I ever want to get to an elephant that was the size of a small house with eyes. Utterly massive! It towered over buses. When you go into the bush, my tour guide warned, you enter the food chain, and there, we don’t figure very high at all. The experience reminded me how insignificant I am and how utterly privileged I am to be here, with you, dear community. We’re all pretty lucky.

I also really enjoyed meeting some of the local community. My friend, Rory Preddy at Microsoft South Africa, was telling me that the local community here in South Africa is very small — tens of thousands of professional developers, if that. What the community lacks in quantity, they more than make up for in quality.

What an amazing and inspiring few days it’s been! Tomorrow, I’m off to Mauritius for the MSCC, and then, I'm back in South Africa on Friday for the SpringOne Tour Capetown event. This is going to be fun!