Java 7 introduced type inference for constructor arguments with generics. Consider the following line of code:

List<String> myThings = new ArrayList<String>(); 

In Java 7, the preceding line of code could be replaced with the following:

List<String> myThings = new ArrayList<>();  

The preceding code shouldn't be confused with the following, which is trying to mix the generics with the raw types:

List<String> myThings = new ArrayList();  

Java 7 also allowed type inference to invoke generic methods. For a generic method (say, print()) defined in a class (say, MyClass), the code would be as follows:

class MyClass<T> { 
   public <X> void print(X x) { 
         System.out.println(x.getClass()); 
   } 
}  

The preceding code can be called in either of the following ways (the third line of code uses type inference to infer the type of the argument passed to the print() method):

MyClass<String> myClass = new MyClass<>(); 
myClass.<Boolean>deliver(new Boolean("true"));     
myClass.deliver(new Boolean("true"));