Understanding Java 8 Generics

Java 5 introduced generics capabilities to the language, and for most developers, simply knowing that collections were typed was enough to get them through the day. However, one look at the standard library in Java 8 tells you those days are over. To be an effective Java developer now, you must understand the details of generics and how they are used in Java 8. Designed for the intermediate level Java user, this video explores how generic classes and methods are defined, how they enforce bounded types through wildcards, and how you can use them in your own code.

• Learn to use Java effectively, given the increased visibility of generics in Java 8
• Discover what most Java developers get wrong about generics and inheritance
• Understand how Java uses generics in type and method definitions
• Explore how upper and lower bounded wildcards are interpreted
• Discover how to interpret complex method signatures with wildcards
• Learn to diagnose heap pollution warnings and use @SafeVarargs annotation
• Gain experience using complex examples from the Java 8 standard library

Ken Kousen is the author of the books Gradle Recipes for Android (O’Reilly) and Making Java Groovy (Manning), as well as O’Reilly video courses on Android, Groovy, Gradle, Advanced Java, and Spring. He is a regular speaker on the No Fluff, Just Stuff conference tour and a 2013 JavaOne Rock Star, and has spoken at conferences all over the world. Through his company, Kousen IT, Inc., he teaches software development training courses to thousands of students.