Java Lambdas

So, we finally have the syntax figured out for Lambdas in Java.  My thoughts:

1. Kudos for avoiding the "not invented here" syndrome, and choosing a syntax that's intuitive and in wide use already, rather than inventing something from scratch like they were originally trying to do.
2. That being said, it's about damn time.  It shouldn't have taken this long just to decide on the syntax.  I shouldn't be too aggravated, though, since the lack of progress in advancing the Java language has contributed to the rise of alternative JVM-based languages, and allowed me to work with languages like Groovy and Clojure, which are vastly more pleasant to work with on the whole than Java is at this point.
3. This is only half the battle: The other (and in my view more important) half is how this gets implemented under the covers: I've always felt that a big issue with implementing Lambdas in Java is the fact that functions aren't first-class objects (you currently cannot create a function/method independent of a class), and trying to get them there would likely require some breaking of backwards compatibility...assuming they want to go in that direction at all.  This is the same kind of issue Sun faced when implementing generics for Java 5 (and pretty much everyone thinks Sun bungled that pretty bad).

At least they're making progress.

Finally.