Keeping up with Java

Check out the java version running on your machine. Go ahead, bring a prompt out.

java -version

Chances are: you are still using 1.6.something (or earlier).

Here is a link to Java's version history on wiki: here. 1.7 has been out since 2011. Look at all those security fixes needed.

Here is a good slideshow of the 1.7 features: here. There are "syntactic sugar" to do number literals... case statements that can use strings, combining Exception handling, and a bunch of new things most people probably don't need often...

1.8 is around the corner (March 2014). Lambda! That define-things-on-the-fly "calculus" of functional-languages can do is finally here. People just love to define functions on the fly. Many java-like languages added it on their own and now Java has incorporated it onto itself. Read about it here. The idea is "innovate" (translation: steal from other frameworks and languages and incorporate them as standardization)

Syntax nightmare ahead, you know people will go wild with it. Where is the word lambda? I at least see it in LISP.