date/time API is contained in the java.time package

The new date/time API in Java 8 is contained in the java.time package. If you're familiar with Joda Time, it will be really easy to pick up. Actually, I think it's so well-designed that even people who have never heard of Joda Time should find it easy to pick up.

Almost everything in the API is immutable, including the value types and the formatters. No more worrying about exposing Date fields or dealing with thread-local date formatters.

The intermingling with the legacy date/time API is minimal. It was a clean break:

• Date.toInstant()
• Date.from(Instant)
• Calendar.toInstant()

The new API prefers enums over integer constants for things like months and days of the week.

So, what's in it? The package-level javadocs do an excellent job of explaining the additional types. I'll give a brief rundown of some noteworthy parts.

Extremely useful value types:

• LocalDateTime, LocalDate, LocalTime
• Year, Month, YearMonth, MonthDay, DayOfWeek (ok, maybe Year is a little less useful than the others)

Less useful value types:

• Instant - similar to java.util.Date
• ZonedDateTime, ZoneId - for when time zones are important
• OffsetDateTime, OffsetTime, ZoneOffset - for dealing with offsets from UTC
• Duration, Period - although if you're trying to find the amount of time between two dates, you might be looking for ChronoUnit instead (see below)

Other useful types:

• DateTimeFormatter - for converting datetime objects to strings
• ChronoUnit - for figuring out the amount of time bewteen two points, e.g. ChronoUnit.DAYS.between(t1, t2)
• TemporalAdjuster - e.g. date.with(TemporalAdjuster.firstDayOfMonth())

The new value types are, for the most part, supported by JDBC. There are minor exceptions, such as ZonedDateTime which has no counterpart in SQL.