Things You Thought You Didn’t Need To Care About • Holly Cummins • GOTO 2025

A wide-ranging conference talk covering several foundational concepts developers often overlook. Topics include: the Norway/YAML Boolean parsing bug as an example of unintended consequences; Bayes' theorem and why statistical reasoning matters for developers (spam filters, static analysis accuracy, cryptography); the growing importance of concurrency as CPU core counts rise and why most developers struggle with it; Quarkus and virtual threads as practical approaches to concurrency; quantum computing's threat to public-key cryptography and Java 24's quantum-safe cryptography APIs; and the macroeconomic explanation for the current developer job market slump (rising interest rates reducing VC investment, not AI). The talk argues AI will not reduce developer jobs long-term due to Jevons paradox and historically growing software demand.