Java version history from 1.4 to 1.8

1) Java 4 Features :

The important feature of J2SE 4 is assertions. It is used for testing.

• Assertion (Java 4)

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2) Java 5 Features :

The important features of J2SE 5 are generics and assertions. Others are autoboxing, enum, var-args, static import, for-each loop (enhanced for loop etc.

• For-each loop (Java 5)
• Varargs (Java 5)
• Static Import (Java 5)
• Autoboxing and Unboxing (Java 5)
• Enum (Java 5)
• Covariant Return Type (Java 5)
• Annotation (Java 5)
• Generics (Java 5)

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3) Java 6 Features :

A feature or an enhancement in Java is encapsulated in the form of a JSR. JSR, which stands for Java Specification Request is nothing but a formal proposal which details the need for a specific functionality to be available in the Java Platform that can be used by Applications. These JSR’s will be reviewed and released by a committee called JavaExpert Groups (JEG). This article covers the following list of features (or JSRs') that comes along with the Java 6 Platform.

Pluggable Annotation Processing API (JSR 269)

• Common Annotations (JSR 250)
• Java API for XML Based Web Services - 2.0 (JSR 224)
• JAXB 2.0 (JSR 222)
• Web Services Metadata (JSR 181)
• Streaming API for XML (JSR 173)
• XML Digital Signature (JSR 105)
• Java Class File Specification Update (JSR 202)
• Java Compiler API (JSR 199)
• JDBC 4.0 (JSR 221)
• Scripting in the Java Platform (JSR 223)

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4) Java 7 Features :

The important features of JavaSE 7 are try with resource, catching multiple exceptions etc.

• String in switch statement (Java 7)
• Binary Literals (Java 7)
• The try-with-resources (Java 7)
• Catching Multiple Exceptions by single catch (Java 7)
• Underscores in Numeric Literals (Java 7)

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5) Java 8 New Features

There are several features added to Java 8, the most significant ones are mentioned below

• Lambda expression − Adds functional processing capability to Java.
• Method references − Referencing functions by their names instead of invoking them directly. Using functions as parameter.
• Default method − Interface to have default method implementation.
• New tools − New compiler tools and utilities are added like ‘jdeps’ to figure out dependencies.
• Stream API − New stream API to facilitate pipeline processing.
• Date Time API − Improved date time API.
• Optional − Emphasis on best practices to handle null values properly.
• Nashorn, JavaScript Engine − A Java-based engine to execute JavaScript code.