What's the advantage of using method references in this case?

Question

I have two variables as follows:

List<Basket> bigBasket = new ArrayList<>(); Basket basket = new Basket();

I wrote the following code to add a relationship between items in bigBasket and basket:

for (Fruit specialFruit : bigBasket.get(0).getFruitInBasket()) {
    for (Fruit fruit : basket.getFruitInBasket()) {
        specialFruit.addRelationship(fruit);
    }
}

Now this is all fine but IntelliJ inspected the code and offered to improve it with the using a method reference so I got the following:

for (Fruit specialFruit : bigBasket.get(0).getFruitInBasket()) {
   basket.getFruitInBasket().forEach(specialFruit::addRelationship);
}

So the above has fewer lines but what is the actual advantage of it? I am not entirely clued up on the benefits of Java 8 features so that's probably why I don't really understand what's happening.

In my opinion, the "improved" version of code is not very readable in the sense of immediately understanding what's happening vs a standard for loop assuming you don't have much knowledge about Java 8 features.

Could someone explain the benefits of the "improved" code vs the standard for loop?

EDIT: Removed incorrect references to lambdas. The code is just using method references - just a lingo mistake on my part!

Answer 1

I see no advantage in the "improved" code in terms of performance. Both snippets would iterate over the entire basket.getFruitInBasket() Collection, and perform the exact same action for each element.

Preferring one way over the other is simply a matter of taste. In my opinion, the Java 8 version expresses the fact that you perform a single action on all elements of the Collection more clearly (assuming you are used to method references).

BTW, there's no lambda expression in your code, just a method reference.