Heinz Kabutz – Lambdas are confusing and Java needs evangelists

Java 8 was launched in March 2014 with great fanfare. The new lambda syntax allows us to have a more succinct coding style and get rid of a lot of boilerplate code. However, there is also confusion. Even the “State of the Lambdas” paper starts by comparing lambdas to ActionListener.

Even though that is indeed a functional interface, its related listeners such as MouseListener are not, explains Heinz Kabutz, author of the popular Java Specialists newsletter. In his session at the W-JAX, Heinz showed his audience a number of interfaces and let the audience decide whether or not it qualified as a functional interface – the results proved that a large amount of confusion remains over the use of lambdas.

Heinz spoke to us after his session about what Java developers can do to improve their lambda usage, and also commented on the recent Java Evangelist layoffs and what it means for the community.