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copied!<p>Modulo some scope-disambiguation constructs, almost all of these methods follow from the actual definition of a lambda abstraction:</p> <pre><code>λx.E </code></pre> <p>To answer your questions in order:</p> <p>I don't think there are any particular things that make the proposals by the Java community better or worse than anything else. As I said, it follows from the mathematical definition, and therefore all faithful implementations are going to have almost exactly the same form.</p> <p>Anonymous first-class functions bolted onto imperative languages tend to end up as a feature that some programmers love and use frequently, and that others ignore completely - therefore it is probably a sensible choice to give it some syntax that will not confuse the kinds of people who choose to ignore the presence of this particular language feature. I think hiding the complexity and particulars of implementation is what they have attempted to do by using syntax that blends well with Java, but which has no real connotation for Java programmers.</p> <p>It's probably desirable for them to use some bits of syntax that are not going to complicate existing definitions, and so they are slightly constrained in the symbols they can choose to use as operators and such. Certainly Java's insistence on remaining backwards-compatible limits the language evolution slightly, but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. The PHP approach is at the other end of the spectrum (i.e. "hey guys, let's break everything every time there is a new point release!"). I don't think that Java's evolution is inherently limited except by some of the fundamental tenets of its design - e.g. adherence to OOP principles, VM-based.</p> <p>I think it's very difficult to make strong statements about language evolution from Java's perspective. It is in a reasonably unique position. For one, it's very, very popular, but it's relatively old. Microsoft had the benefit of at least 10 years worth of Java legacy before they decided to even start designing a language called "C#". The C programming language basically stopped evolving at all. C++ has had few significant changes that found any mainstream acceptance. Java has continued to evolve through a slow but consistent process - if anything I think it is better-equipped to keep on evolving than any other languages with similarly huge installed code bases.</p>

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