No Closures in Java 7?

Currently it seems that Java 7 will not get closures. Oh dear.

According to Hamlet D'Arcy's blog Java 7 will not get closure support. That's bad news to me. It should have closures instead of the new style "for" loop added in Java 5. It should have closures in Java 6. Now it seems that it will not get closures in Java 7.

Closures are not that difficult to understand. At least when you compare them to anonymous inner classes in Java. Others disagree. I don't follow the reasoning of the closure opponents when they say that because there are stupid Java programmers out there you should limit the Language trying to prevent them from doing too much harm. That's just impossible. Incompetent programmers will shoot themselves in the foot in any language.

Fortunately there are other languages on the JVM that can use the real strength of Java: libraries, portability, and (to some extent) tooling.