D for the JVM

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:57:04 +0000
Russel Winder <russel at winder.org.uk> wrote:

> and Java 8 is a game
> changer that threatens Scala, and Kotlin.
> 

You've mentioned this before in another thread, and you've got me
curious: What aspect (or aspects) of Java 8 are there that make it a
game-changer?

You've obviously been keeping up on Java developments far, far more
than I have (I've mostly been ignoring it since ~v5 when I jumped
ship to C#/D), so all I know is what I've just looked up on Wikipedia.
The lambdas/closures do indeed sound like a very big deal for Java (I
can't help recalling the infamous old Sun whitepaper that
attempted to show they were unnecessary ;) ). But is there more
*really* significant stuff (I assume there is), or is that the main
reason for Java 8's significance?