These changes are the first since Java5 to make a real difference to how I will program, and thus are pretty nice to see.
The sad thing is that a large part of my Java programming will involve Android, and thus I will continue living in Java5/6 land, as will numerous libraries and large parts of the Java ecosystem.
I wonder when Google will address the future of Java on Android in a substantial way? Eventually it will not be tenable to stay on a 10 year old version of a language. I hope they will seriously consider either updating their supported syntax to be compatible with Java8 or introducing some other language into the Android SDK (Go go!).
I remember some years ago when I was glad Java 5 had got some really practical new features. I didn't program in Java back then, but I wanted the language to evolve (maybe I was going to need it in the future).
Now I do program in Java 5/6 and it would be really sad if the language was still stuck in the 1.4 days.
The sad thing is that a large part of my Java programming will involve Android, and thus I will continue living in Java5/6 land, as will numerous libraries and large parts of the Java ecosystem.
I wonder when Google will address the future of Java on Android in a substantial way? Eventually it will not be tenable to stay on a 10 year old version of a language. I hope they will seriously consider either updating their supported syntax to be compatible with Java8 or introducing some other language into the Android SDK (Go go!).