What new features and capabilities of Java 8 do you apply in your development practice?

In Java 8, key features were introduced that significantly simplify and improve development:

• Lambda expressions — allow writing compact and expressive code for functional interfaces, such as for processing collections.

• Stream API — a convenient way to work with data collections, supporting filtering, transformation, sorting, and aggregation operations in a declarative style.

• Default methods in interfaces — enable adding new methods to interfaces without breaking existing implementations.

• Optional — a class for safe handling of potential null values, reducing the likelihood of NullPointerException.

• New APIs for date and time (java.time) — more convenient and reliable classes for working with dates, times, and time zones.

Example of using Stream API with lambdas:

List<String> names = Arrays.asList("Anna", "Bob", "Charlie", "David");
List<String> filtered = names.stream()
    .filter(name -> name.startsWith("A"))
    .map(String::toUpperCase)
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

System.out.println(filtered); // [ANNA]