Differences between Java 5, 6,7 and 8

Java 5

• Generics.
• Annotations.
• AutoBoxing
• Varargs
• for each
• Static Imports
• java.util.concurrent

Java 6

• Scripting Language Support (Rhino)
• JAX-WS
• Java Compiler API

Java 7

• Project Coin
• Strings in switch
• Automatic Resource Management
• Diamond Operator
• Java NIO file API
• Timsort is used to sort collections and arrays of objects instead of merge sort.
• Elliptic curve cryptography

Java 8

• lambda expressions
• default methods
• Annotation on Java Types
• Repeating annotations
• Date and Time API
• Remove the permanent generation