Java?s platform independence presents an opportunity for using function shipping to optimize communications in distributed applications. This paper introduces the concept of ?eager handlers?, where handlers are functions that are tightly linked with certain communications performed by Java programs. Their ?eagerness? refers to fine-grained, transparent, and efficient function shipping performed for such handlers, with the intent of optimizing communications. The paper describes the design and implementation of eager handlers and also presents results evaluating this concept. It also includes a design for automatically generating eager handlers through static program analysis and online sampling and reconfiguration. Although we have been applying our work to stream-based peer-to-peer communication systems, it is also applicable to client-server applications.