Java 8
Java isn't a new language. It's often everyone's first language, thanks to its role as the lingua franca for AP Computer Science. There are billions of JAR files floating around running the world.
But Java 8 is a bit different. It comes with new features aimed at offering functional techniques that can unlock the parallelism in your code. You don't have to use them. You could stick with all the old Java because it still works. But if you don't use it, you'll be missing the chance to offer the Java virtual machine (JVM) even more structure for optimizing the execution. You'll miss the chance to think functionally and write cleaner, faster, and less buggy code.
Highlights: Lambda expressions and concurrent code
