Default, Defender or Extension Method of Java 8 with Example

Java 8 now allows you to add non-abstract method implementations to interfaces by utilizing the default and static keyword. Methods with default keyword are known as default methods or defender methods in Java. Before Java 8, it was virtually impossible to change an interface once published. Any change e.g. addition of a new method would have broken all clients. That's why when Java 8 decided to switch to internal iterator implementation using forEach() method, they face a daunting challenge of breaking all implementation of Iterable interface. Since backward compatibility is top priority for Java engineers, and it wasn't practical to break all clients, they came up with idea of default method. This is an amazing and very powerful change, because now you can evolve your existing interface with all the knowledge you have gained after using them. JDK itself is utilizing default methods in big way, java.util.Map interface is extended with several new default methods e.g. replaceAll(), putIfAbsent(Key k, Value v) and others. By the way, Since default method allows extension of existing interface, it’s also known as Extension method. You are also free to define any number of default method in your interface. I think after this change, you unlikely need an abstract class to provide skeletal implementation as described in Effective Java e.g. List comes with AbstractList, Collection comes with AbstractCollection, Set comes with AbstractSet and Map comes with AbstractMap. Instead of creating a new abstract class with default implementation, you can define them as default method inside interface itself. Similarly, introduction of static methods inside interface will make pattern of an interface utility class redundant e.g. Collections for Collection interface, Paths for Path and so on. You can directly define static utility method on interface itself.