Why was 'effectively final' introduced in Java 8?

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The difference of a local variable being final or effectively final has been discussed here. I do not really understand though, why it was introduced in Java 8. To me it seems like it just gives the programmer the freedom to leave out the final keyword, but treating the variable effectively as final. No change in logic, just a helper for the 'lazy' programmer not to need to write final.

Isn't that even a step-back, since now a variable that is effectively final misses the keyword, not indicating it to the reader of the code. So is there a reason for Oracle to allow leaving out the final keyword here?

asked 33 secs ago

mbader

136

Why was 'effectively final' introduced in Java 8?