Sign In Start Free Trial
Account

Add to playlist

Create a Playlist

Modal Close icon
You need to login to use this feature.
  • Book Overview & Buying Learning Java Lambdas
  • Table Of Contents Toc
Learning Java Lambdas

Learning Java Lambdas

By : Toby Weston
close
close
Learning Java Lambdas

Learning Java Lambdas

By: Toby Weston

Overview of this book

In this short book, we take an in-depth look at lambdas in Java, and their supporting features. The book covers essential topics, such as functional interfaces and type inference, and the key differences between lambdas and closures. You will learn about the background to functional programming and lambdas, before moving on to understanding the basic syntax of lambdas and what differentiates these anonymous functions from standard anonymous classes. Lastly, you'll learn how to invoke lambdas and look at the bytecode generated. After reading this book, you'll understand lambdas in depth, their background, syntax, implementation details, and how and when to use them. You'll also have a clear knowledge of the difference between functions and classes, and why that's relevant to lambdas. This knowledge will enable you to appreciate the improvements to type inference that drive a lot of the new features in modern Java, and will increase your understanding of method references and scoping.
Table of Contents (5 chapters)
close
close

Type inference improvements


There have been several type inference improvements in modern Java. To be able to support lambdas, the way the compiler infers things has been improved to use target typing extensively. This and other improvements over Java 7's inference were managed under the Open JDK Enhancement Proposal (JEP) 101.

Before we get into those, lets recap on the basics.

Type inference refers to the ability for a programming language to automatically deduce the type of an expression.

Statically typed languages know the types of things at compile time. Dynamically typed languages know the types at runtime. A statically typed language can use type inference and drop type information in source code and use the compiler to figure out what's missing.

So this means that type inference can be used by statically typed languages (like Scala) to "look" like dynamic languages (like JavaScript). At least at the source code level.

Here's an example of a line of code in Scala:

val name = "Henry"

You...

Visually different images
CONTINUE READING
83
Tech Concepts
36
Programming languages
73
Tech Tools
Icon Unlimited access to the largest independent learning library in tech of over 8,000 expert-authored tech books and videos.
Icon Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Icon 50+ new titles added per month and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Learning Java Lambdas
notes
bookmark Notes and Bookmarks search Search in title playlist Add to playlist font-size Font size

Change the font size

margin-width Margin width

Change margin width

day-mode Day/Sepia/Night Modes

Change background colour

Close icon Search
Country selected

Close icon Your notes and bookmarks

Confirmation

Modal Close icon
claim successful

Buy this book with your credits?

Modal Close icon
Are you sure you want to buy this book with one of your credits?
Close
YES, BUY

Submit Your Feedback

Modal Close icon
Modal Close icon
Modal Close icon