Scout/java 5 features

[winfriedgerlach]

If we cannot go for Java 8 features yet, we can at least leverage Java 5 features.
Here is the first of some modernization PRs

[silviuburceadev]

I'm just wondering if one needs to worry about thread safety on the switch from StringBuffer to StringBuilder in all these classes.

[winfriedgerlach]

@silviuburceadev I was careful and only changed from StringBuffer to StringBuilder when the StringBuilder was created in the same method and the result of the StringBuilder was also "consumed" in the same method - i.e. sb.toString() was called.

In cases where something else was done with StringBuffer (e.g., stored in a field, returned from method etc.) I didn't touch it exactly for the reason that you have in mind.