sample.java

import opentelemetry.context.Scope;
import opentelemetry.trace.Tracer;
import opentelemetry.trace.Span;
# No imports on Brave

// Start a new trace or a span within an existing trace representing an operation
Span span = tracer.spanBuilder("encode").startSpan();
// Put the span in "scope" so that downstream code such as loggers can see trace IDs
try (Scope scope = tracer.withSpan(span)) {
  return encoder.encode();
} catch (RuntimeException | Error e) {
  span.recordException(e); // Unless you handle exceptions, you might not know the operation failed!
  throw e;
} finally {
  span.end(); // note the scope is independent of the span. Always finish a span.
}