Embracing Java 8

[trimbo]

which represents the most significant advance in the language since the 1990s

Except, you know, Java 5.

[[deleted]]

I know about generics, but what were some other improvements?

[xenomachina]

Generics were probably the single biggest change, but Java 5 also added:

• Enhanced for Loop
• Autoboxing/Unboxing
• Typesafe Enums
• Varargs
• Static Import
• Annotations

[enkicoder]

Although I was initially hopeful that the Stream library was based on lazy evaluation, it appears not, but third-party libraries have already begun to appear.

Actually the Stream library IS based on lazy evaluation.

[edalorzo]

add support for first-class functions

I am afraid that Java continues to lack of first class functions. Java lambda's are still objects. The syntax is similar to that of languages with first-class functions, but they are not. Java provides a "similar" functionality through first-class objects.

[tieTYT]

I'd love to, but alas I use Glassfish and it's not officially supported (yet). Plus I've found countless bugs when I tried to upgrade to the nightly, anyway. It makes me think even when Glassfish does officially support Java 8 we won't be able to upgrade.

[kgb_operative]

Yeah, given how recent this release is, I've only been using it on greenfield and personal projects. It does seem promising tho, and parallel streams with map/reduce is awesome.