Java Reference
In-Depth Information
If you have a preference for one of the other IDEs, already have one installed on your computer, or
work in a company or group that expects you to use their choice, you can still follow along with the
exercises on another platform. Some of the images and instructions won't entirely match what you
see on your screen, but the code will be the same and the process will be quite similar.
On the other hand, if you proceed with Eclipse now and want to try the others later, they all offer
facilities to transfer projects from one platform to the other. There are many help resources devoted
to assisting users of other environments to quickly learn their way around a new environment. The
skills you develop programming in Eclipse are transferable to other environments.
installing eclipse on your computer
In this second section of this chapter, you learn how to download and install Eclipse. Before finish-
ing, you'll have a chance to try out the Eclipse environment and compare the experience to coding
in a plain text editor. If you already have Eclipse or another IDE running on your machine, this may
be redundant. In that case, you may want to proceed to the next chapter, where you can start right
away with Object‐Oriented Programming.
Earlier in this chapter, there were instructions for downloading and installing the Java Development
Kit (JDK) from Oracle. In order to program in Java, whether compiling code from your text editor
or using an IDE, you need the JDK. Be sure you have installed it before you continue. You need it to
develop Java programs in Eclipse.
downloading and installing eclipse
If you do not have Eclipse on your computer, you can follow these instructions to download and
install it. Eclipse 4.4.1 (Luna release) includes support for Java 8, so it's recommended that you use
this or a later version. If you have an older version of Eclipse, you can update to Luna by following
these instructions. If you must continue using Eclipse 4.3.2 (Kepler), you can find a Java 8 patch that
offers preliminary Java 8 support. You can download the standard Eclipse platform from Eclipse
packages that bundle some additional components.
The standard Eclipse platform is suficient to complete the exercises in this topic and offers enough func-
tionality for most beginner programmers. You can download it from
http://download.eclipse.org/
eclipse/downloads/
. Make sure you choose the most recent build date under Latest Release. Click on
the build name, and you should see a list of Eclipse SDK options, as shown in Figure 3-3. As with the
JDK, you'll have to choose the version that matches your operating system. Click on the corresponding
(http) under the column heading Download to access the download site. Your download may begin auto-
matically, or you may need to press the green arrow to download the compressed file.
If you prefer to download a package, Eclipse IDE for Java Developers offers some extra tools for
shows you where to look for the Java Developer package. There is a drop‐down to select your oper-
ating system. Once you choose the correct platform, click on the link for the correct version.
Once you have downloaded the ZIP (compressed) file, you need to unzip (decompress) it. Inside the
decompressed folder, you should see the icon for starting Eclipse. The icon from the Luna release is
shown in Figure 3-5.
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