Java 7 vs Java 8

Java 7

Features Added:
-Support for dynamically-typed languages (InvokeDynamic): Extensions to the JVM, the Java language, and the Java SE API to support the implementation of dynamically-typed languages at performance levels near to that of the Java language itself

- Strict class-file checking: Class files of version 51 (SE 7) or later must be verified with the typechecking verifier; the VM must not fail over to the old inferencing verifier.

- Small language enhancements (Project Coin): A set of small language changes intended to simplify common, day-to-day programming tasks: Strings in switch statements, try-with-resources statements, improved type inference for generic instance creation (\"diamond\"), simplified varargs method invocation, better integral literals, and improved exception handling (multi-catch)

- Upgrade class-loader architecture: A method that frees the underlying resources, such as open files, held by a URLClassLoader

- Concurrency and collections updates: A lightweight fork/join framework, flexible and reusable synchronization barriers, transfer queues, concurrent linked double-ended queues, and thread-local pseudo-random number generators.

- Internationalization Upgrade: Upgrade on Unicode 6.0, Locale enhancement and Separate user locale and user-interface locale.

- More new I/O APIs for the Java platform (NIO.2), NIO.2 filesystem provider for zip/jar archives, SCTP, SDP, TLS 1.2 support.

- Security & Cryptography implemented Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC).

- Upgrade to JDBC 4.1 and Rowset 1.1.

- XRender pipeline for Java 2D, Create new platform APIs for 6u10 graphics features, Nimbus look-and-feel for Swing, Swing JLayer component, Gervill sound synthesizer.

- Upgrade the components of the XML stack to the most recent stable versions: JAXP 1.4, JAXB 2.2a, and JAX-WS 2.2.

- Enhanced Managed Beans.

Java 8

Code name is Spider. Features Added:
- JSR 335, JEP 126: Language-level support for lambda expressions.

- JSR 223, JEP 174: Project Nashorn, a JavaScript runtime which allows developers to embed JavaScript code within applications.

- JSR 308, JEP 104: Annotation on Java Types.

- Unsigned Integer Arithmetic.

- JSR 337, JEP 120: Repeating annotations.

- JSR 310, JEP 150: Date and Time API.

- JEP 178: Statically-linked JNI libraries.

- JEP 153: Launch JavaFX applications (direct launching of JavaFX application JARs).

- JEP 122: Remove the permanent generation.

- Java 8 is not supported on Windows XP. But as of JDK 8 update 5, it still can run under Windows XP after forced installation by directly unzipping from the installation executable.

Resource Link:

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