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Ben Black
Ben Black has been programming Java for a year. His motto is once you
have learned the basics, you have conquered the language.
He is the main webmaster
of the Java resource site Cookie Nest -
www.cookienest.com.
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Java Basic - Getting Started
It is time to start downloading.
To start writing Java you will definitely need:
- Java Software Development Kit (SDK)
- Text Editor or IDE
The SDK is easy, you just need to download it free of
charge from the Java web site http://java.sun.com/, you will find it in the
Products & APIs directory, or more specifically http://java.sun.com/products/. At the moment the
latest version of the SDK is 1.4 and is found directly at http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/download.html.
Remember to click on the Windows (all languages) row and the
SDK column. It usually takes about 2 hours 30 minutes, so I
would recommend that you download a downloader program first
(because I don't know if the Internet Explorer standard downloader
can handle it all). I use Download Accelerator Plus which you can
get for free from http://www.speedbit.com/.
Once downloaded, install. One thing you should do once you have
installed the SDK is to make sure that your computer knows
where it is. By this I mean that you have to set the path of the
SDK in your autoexec.bat file. So that you don't have
to keep on typing the long path to the SDK in DOS (as
you use the SDK through DOS, or you can use an
IDE (later)). This is what you do:
- Go to your C:\ directory.
- Right click, and select Edit. The file will pop up in a
text editor and it will look a bit like this.
- If it hasn't already you need to type this in to the text
editor and save it. Remember to change the "path of SDK" to
where ever the SDK is.
SET PATH C:\path of
SDK\j2sdk1.4.0\bin
For example if you downloaded SDK 1.2.2
and it was saved into the directory C:\Alice\Java\jdk1.2.2 then
you should have this (always remember to but \bin on the
end of your path).
SET PATH
C:\Alice\Java\jdk1.2.2\bin
- Then you need to restart your computer and you should see in
the setup screen the path being set.
You can also do this via your control panel if you are using
Windows 2000.
Now all you need is either a text editor or an IDE
(Integrated Development Environment). If you can't be
bothered downloading anything more you can just use Notepad. But
there are several IDEs you can download.
IDEs are editors specifically made for Java, so
instead of having to go the long way using notepad, you can do
things much easier and quicker with an IDE. There are two
which are free.
- Forte which is made by Sun Microsystems - http://www.sun.com/forte/ffj/
- FreeJava, but their web site no longer exists You can
download it here.
I recommend the FreeJava IDE as it is much quicker, is
nice and compact and fairly easy to use. While Forte takes ages to
load up, is big, messes up your computer with folders and files and
I still haven't worked out how to use it. What ever you use, in the
next stage of the tutorial I'll show you how to do things the long
way using notepad and DOS.
New on the Java Boutique:
New Review:
Time Management Made Easy with the Quartz Enterprise Job Scheduler
Why not just use the Java timer API? This open source scheduling
API boasts simplicity, ease-of-integration, a well-rounded feature
set, and it's free!
New Applet:
Reverse Complement
Reverse Complement is a simple applet that converts DNA or RNA
sequences into three useful formats.
Elsewhere on internet.com:
WebDeveloper Java
Lots of Java information on webdeveloper.com
WDVL Java
Thorough Java resource at the Web Developer's Virtual Library.
ScriptSearch Java
Hundreds of free Java code files to download.
jGuru: Your View of the Java Universe
Customizable portal with online training, FAQs, regular news updates, and tutorials.
