Java 8 is packed full of some really exciting features at both the JVM and language level. 1. Lambda Expressions Even if we really didn’t want to go mainstream here, there’s little doubt that from a developer’s perspective, the most dominant feature of Java 8 is the new support for Lambda expressions. This addition to the language brings Java to the forefront of functional programming, right there with other functional JVM-based languages such as Scala and Clojure. We’ve previously looked into how Java implemented Lambda expressions , and how it compared to the approach taken by Scala. From Java’s perspective this is by far one of the biggest additions to the language in the past decade. At minimum, it’s recommended you become familiar with the Lambda syntax, especially as it relates to array and collection operations, where Lambdas have been tightly integrated into the core language libraries. It is highly likely that you’ll start seeing more and more code like the snip