title: How will closures in Java enable API design to replace language design?
body: <p>I can see some of the benefits of closures, such as how they can have their place in simplifying existing libraries and making some future design easier and more efficient.</p>
  
  <p>However, one of the key points mentioned in the draft proposal (http://www.javac.info/consensus-closures-jsr.html) is in section 2.5, point e:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>(The specification will improve the language by)</p>
    
    <p><strong>e)</strong> enabling future API design to replace language design for extending the Java platform.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I'm struggling to see how this is the case, surely language design is just that - the design of the language itself, and can't be replaced by an API unless Java opens up all sorts of weird APIs using closures for modifying the language (which I highly doubt will happen.)</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone shed some light on this and perhaps provide an example of something that required a language change previously but, with the addition of closures, no longer requires one?</p>