Java 8 Major Features

Its initial version was released on 18 March 2014. With the Java 8 release, Java provided supports for functional programming, new JavaScript engine, new APIs for date time manipulation, new streaming API, etc.

New Features:

• Lambda expression: adds functional processing capability to Java.

• Method references: referencing functions by their names instead of invoking them directly. Using functions as parameter.

• Default method: interface to have default method implementation.

• New tools: new compiler tools and utilities are added like ‘jdeps’ to figure out dependencies.

• Stream API: new stream API to facilitate pipeline processing.

• Date Time API: improved date time API.

• Optional: emphasis on best practices to handle null values properly.

• Nashorn, JavaScript Engine: a Java-based engine to execute JavaScript code.

• CompletableFuture: composable asynchronous programming (see https://github.com/juanmrm/completablefuture)