Java 8 Features
Updated
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Why Java 8 was a Landmark Release?
Java 8 (March 2014) is the most significant Java release since Java 5. It brought functional programming idioms into a stringly-types object oriented language, enabling concise, expressive, and parallelism-friendly code without breaking backward compatibility.
| Feature | Package/API | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Lambda Expression | java.lang | Anonymous functions; enable functional programming |
| Functional interface | java.util.function | Single abstract method interface; target for lambdas |
| Method references | java.lang | Compact lambda shorthand |
| Stream API | java.util.stream | Functional pipeline for collection |
| Optional | java.util | Null-safe value container |
| Default & Static Methods | java.lang | interface evaluation without breaking changes |
| New Date & Time API | java.time | Immutable, thread-safe date/time |
| Nashorn JS Engine | javax.script | Execute JavaScript inside JVM |
| Base64 | java.util | Built-in Base64 encode/decode |
| Parallel Arrays | java.util.Arrays | Arrays.parallelSort(),ParallelSetAll() |
| StringJoiner | java.util | Build delimiter strings elegantly |
