Java is a general-purpose programming language with class-based object-orientation at its core. But, with the release of version 8, a more functional programming style became viable.

With Java 8 came one of the greatest additions to Java: the Stream API. And one of its important aspects is collecting its results.

Until Java 8, there was no better way to handle null references than checking your variables at every turn. The new class java.util.Optional<T> changed that significantly.

We looked at version 7 of Java before. Now it’s time to look at its successor, Java 8, a really big update with lots of great new features!

Java was never the quickest language regarding new features compared to newer languages, but IMHO, this is one of the reasons why most of the enterprise world still depends on it and will in the future.

Thanks to the module system of Java 9 and the removal of JavaFX from Java 11, we got some problems running JavaFX apps without older versions of Java.