Java Project Creation Process

Introduction

This chapter will get you up and running with your Java development environment of choice as quickly as possible. I call it Small Victories because you will experience a great feeling of progress when you get your Java development environment installed and you create, compile, and run your first program. You will literally leap out of your chair and do a victory dance when you ve successfully put all the pieces together to get your first program to run!

The previous chapter presented an example of a typical Java source file and described, in general terms, the process required to create, compile, and run the program. This chapter takes that discussion even further and shows you in detail how to create a Java programming project using different types of development tools and operating systems. The operating system you use dictates the types of software-development tools available for your use. However, as you will soon see, all development tools share much in common, regardless of development platform.

I start the chapter with an overview of the Java-program creation, compilation, and execution process. It s important to understand this process so you know the capabilities of your development environment. Next, I will discuss Java integrated development environments (IDEs) and show you how an IDE can speed up your development activities. I follow this with a discussion of how to set up your operating-system environment so your Java tools work correctly. Operating-system configuration issues seem overwhelmingly complicated to computer novices. That s why I take the time to show you how to set your PATH and CLASSPATH environment variables in Windows 2000/XP and the Linux operating systems. Macintosh OS X users have it easy since the Java platform and its development tools come pre-installed.

Next, I will show you how to create, compile, and run Java projects using Sun s Java 2 Software Development Kit (J2SDK) for Microsoft Windows. This includes a discussion of how to download and install the J2SDK. I will then show you how to create Java projects using UNIX and Mac OS X development tools and Borland s JBuilder, a popular IDE. I will then show you how to create and run executable Java .jar files.