The comments in this thread baffle me. I find it amazing that some Java programmers are so rigid in their thinking that they can't deal with the introduction of

The comments in this thread baffle me. I find it amazing that some Java programmers are so rigid in their thinking that they can't deal with the introduction of high order function types that practically every other programming language has. One of the reasons why it's taken so long for Java to get these features was early arguments by members of the JCP that, quite literally, Java programmers were too scared off by the "complexity" of closures. Which is ironic because I see forum postings from Java programmers looking down on Javascript/Ruby and other scripting languages as for less-rigorous/serious engineers. Soft bigotry of low expectations? How can Javascript programmers do fine with the complexity of closures (without types!), but Java programmers are a kind of special protected class of wimps that have to be shielded from functional programming of any sort? :) Lambdas, Streams, and other high order constructs produce vastly more readable code and encourage additional re usability through more abstraction. If you think the introduction of "for-each" in Java5 was a good thing, why be opposed to collection.forEach((x) -> expr), if you can understand for(T x : collection) expr; ? Ditto for listener patterns, filters, comparators, runnables, futures, concurrency primitives, parallel streams, all are easier to use and understand with lambdas. If takes only a few hours and one or two samples to get used to the new lambda syntax, especially if you are familiar with HOF in JS/Ruby/Python/Perl/C#/every-other-freakin-language.