A history of features in Java

Java 8

Language

• Lambda Expressions
• Method references
• Default methods on interfaces
• Repeating Annotations
• Type Annotations
• Method Parameter reflection

Collections

• Stream

Compact Profiles

Date-Time

java.lang / java.util

• Parallel array sorting
• Base64
• Unsigned Arithmetic

jdbc

Networking

• java.net.URLPermission
• java.net.HttpURLConnection

Concurrency

• java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap - streams + lambdas
• java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool
• java.util.concurrent.locks.StampedLock

Java 7

Concurrency

• ThreadLocalRandom
• Phaser

Language

• Binary Literals
• Strings in switch statements
• Try with resources
• Catching multiple exceptions types and rethrowing with improved type checking
• Underscores in numeric literals
• Type Inference for Generic Instance Creation (diamond ops)

Java 6