Java SE 8 for the Really Impatient Book Review

Last year I started working on Java 8, but knew very little of it.  I needed a way to dive into the new features, best practices, while working on a project that was going on production with a hard deadline.  I decided to grab the Java SE 8 for the Really Impatient by Cay S. Horstmann.  I put so many tabs on so many great topics/ideas that a picture is well worth it.

Few things that I picked up from the book is composing Optional value functions with flatMap

The chapter that I focused was on streams.  In my opinion, is the best feature from Java 8. Here, I learned how to transform a stream into a Map result and some of the issues that you have to keep in mind.  For example, if there is more than one element with the same key, the collector will throw an IllegalStateException.
You can override the behavior by supplying the a third function argument that determines the value for the key, given the existing and new value.
Get the book!  I'm sure you guys will enjoy it.

Java 8 Lambdas Book Review

O'Reily's Java 8 Lambdas by Richard Warburn is a "must have" if you are starting with Java 8 or functional programming. The book covers the different features of Java 8, and how using lambdas make you a better programmer. Here are some topics that catched my attention:

• Streams - separate the "what" from "how" 
• Patterns to refactor using lambdas 
• Higher order functions 
• Lambda expressions can be used to make many existing design patterns simpler and more readable, especially the command pattern 
• Lambda-Enabled Concurrency 
• Lambda-Enabled SOLID principles 

 I recommended the book to my team and in my Meetup group - I'm the organizer of the Miami JVM Meetup. I use the book constantly while doing code reviews. Again, any developer, team leader, or architect who is starting to use Java 8 should get this book. I really enjoyed the ending and finally understood the Reactive Programming approach. As the author mentioned,

The critical design tool for software development is a mind well educated in design principles. It is not...technology. - Craig Larman