Fast Track to Java 8 Training in Belgium

Delegates must be proficient in Java 7 with several years of experience developing in industry.

Overview of What’s New

• The introduction and assimilation of lambdas into Java
• Functional and parallel support within the code libraries
• The new Date and Time (JSR 310) and Type Annotation (JSR 308) API’s
• Many additional libraries and virtual machine enhancements

Working With Lambda Expressions

• Understanding the concept and purpose of lambdas
• The various syntax options when declaring lambdas
• Lexical scoping and ‘effectively final’ variables
• Method references as shortcuts to lambdas
• Type inference of parameters in lambdas
• Best practices when declaring and using lambdas
• Declaring interfaces to be used with lambdas
• Making use of the @FunctionalInterface annotation
• How lambdas are implemented at the bytecode level
• Limitations of lambdas compared to other languages

Functional Programming With Lambdas, Collections and Streams

• Introducing the java.util.stream.Stream interface
• Creating streams of objects from collections and via of
• Using parallel and sequential to switch processing model
• Performing filtering and mapping on the contents of streams
• Using reduce to compute a final value from a stream
• Understanding the purpose and value of flatMap
• Performing bulk operations on the elements of collections
• The Optional Monad and Monadic Composition

Other Language Features

• Default implementations for interface methods (aka Extension Methods)
• Parallel array sorting using new methods in java.util.Arrays
• Enhancements to type inference (aka Generalized Target-Type inference)
• Better support for globalization (Unicode 6.2 and BCP 47 language tags)
• Scalable thread-safe counters in java.util.concurrent
• Enhancements to reflection using the javax.lang.model types
• Standardised support for Base 64 encoding and decoding
• Programmatic support for working with JavaDoc
• Improvements in the security libraries
• Support for unsigned integer arithmetic via static methods

The Date and Time API

• How JSR310 evolved from the Joda Time library
• Working with instants, clocks and time zones
• Performing calculations with dates and times
• Using adjusters to make common changes to dates
• Parsing and formatting dates and times
• Combining the API with legacy code

Enhancements to Annotations

• Limitations on existing support for annotations
• How annotating usage enables stronger code contracts
• Annotating type parameters in generic code
• Annotating inheritance relationships
• Annotating exception specifications
• Annotating calls to new, instanceof and casts
• Using annotations multiple times on the same type

JVM and JDK Improvements

• Compact profiles for the JVM
• How HotSpot merges with JRockit in Java8
• Why the PermGem region has been removed
• Retirement of some garbage collection settings
• Enhancements to the invokedynamic instruction
• Enhanced control of the Java compiler at runtime
• The Nashorn JavaScript compiler