Creating Java Projects Using Microsoft Windows 2000XP


Integrated Development Environments

A Java integrated development environment (IDE) is a set of integrated programming tools designed to work together to dramatically increase programmer efficiency. A basic IDE will combine source-file creation and editing, project-management, application-launch, and debugging services. Having one tool that combines these services alone is a big help. Full-featured IDEs can even assist with graphical user interface (GUI) layout and code generation. This section provides a very brief look at several IDEs. The tools discussed below are by no means the only IDEs available, but they do represent the best-of-breed.

TextPad“ J2SDK Combination

An example of a simple IDE is the combination of the programmer s text editor TextPad with Sun s Java 2 Software Development Kit. TextPad integrates with the Java command-line tools so you can call the compiler and interpreter from within TextPad. Source-file compilation errors open in a TextPad window. With a few clicks, TextPad takes you to the offending line in the code where the error occurred. TextPad is included on the Java For Artists supplemental CD. You can also obtain TextPad from [ www.textpad.com ].

Suns NetBeans“

Sun provides a full-featured IDE called NetBeans. NetBeans supports source-file creation, compiling, testing, and debugging of both Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) applications and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Web applications. It includes a full-featured text editor with syntax highlighting and error checking, visual design tools, Ant support, configuration-management system support, and many other features. NetBeans can be downloaded along with the J2SDK from Sun s Java website [ www.java.sun.com ].

Borland¤ JBuilder¤

Borland s JBuilder is an example of an advanced IDE that s packed with features. Highlights include integration with CVS or PVCS version-control systems, embedded Java API documentation help and GUI layout tools. Borland provides a reduced-feature version of JBuilder called Foundation free from their website [ www.borland.com ]. If you have a slow Internet connection that limits your ability to download large software files, you can buy JBuilder Foundation on CD for a small fee. Advanced versions of JBuilder are not free, but the additional features they provide are considered by large numbers of Java developers across the world as being well worth the money spent.

Eclipse¤

Many professional Java developers use an extremely powerful IDE called Eclipse. Developed by IBM, Eclipse is available as an open-source application from eclipse.org [ www.eclipse.org ]. Eclipse is too powerful to be described fully in this section, but imagine a development environment that can do just about anything you can think of and you have Eclipse. Eclipse gets its power from the plethora of open-source and commercial plug-ins available for use with the tool.

A side benefit to learning Eclipse would be your ability to segue easily to using IBM s flagship development environment called Websphere Studio Application/Site Developer. For more information about Eclipse and its available plug-ins, visit the Eclipse website.




Java For Artists(c) The Art, Philosophy, and Science of Object-Oriented Programming
Java For Artists: The Art, Philosophy, And Science Of Object-Oriented Programming
ISBN: 1932504052
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 452

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