Java 101: The essential Java language features tour, Part 7

End your tour of Java’s essential language features with Jeff’s introduction to Java 8’s method references, interface default and static methods, and three lesser known language updates that every Java developer should know about. You’ll also preview some interesting additions coming up in Java 9.

The Essential Java language features tour has explored the most popular and commonly used features introduced with every version of Java since JDK 1.4. With this article we come to the end of the journey — at least for now. Lambdas and functional interfaces are two of the best-known features added to Java 8, and I covered them in Part 6. In this article we’ll get to know Java 8’s contributed method references, interface default and static methods, as well as type annotations, repeating annotations, and improvements to generic type inference. We’ll complete our tour with a preview of Java 9’s language refinements.

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