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And by the right guide, I mean one which doesn't necessarily focus entirely on how to program in Java, but puts forth a bit of effort on everything else. In other words, something which has enough information on the things which IDEs like Eclipse do for you, and how to manage those things without using an IDE.

Some examples of what I'm looking for:

  • How to import Java files without packaging them first.

  • How to specify directories for file/package imports, and where that specification needs to be placed.

  • How to use Gedit to effectively program in Java with nothing but a few plugins and command line for compilation.

  • Great compiler error avoidance practices.

Seriously, I've looked enough now to come to the conclusion that Google really can't just hack what I need, and my best bet is an actual resource filled with lots of information.

If anyone has any ideas or thoughts on where I should look, or even an answer to any of these questions specifically, I would greatly appreciate the input.

Brian Tompsett - 汤莱恩
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zeboidlund
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4 Answers4

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IMHO you can't effectively program in Java without IDE (especially working on bigger project). You should learn about using/setting CLASSPATH, also check documentation for basic JDK commands (javac, java, jar, javadoc etc.).

Eclipse IDE has support for other important project tools e.g. Ant and Maven (for example with M2Eclipse plugin), so you can learn them too if you want.

Check this question for more lightweight IDE than Eclipse.

Community
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Grzegorz Szpetkowski
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Java programming is quite a broad area. You may wish to do web-programming or Swing and there are lots of frameworks and framework combinations to work with.

If you want to be productive there is no way you can survive, especially for large projects, without using one IDE, or maybe even two. You will need a simple JUnit integration, as well as a debugger and automatic code generation for POJO methods, and autocompletion and refactoring capability and you name it.

I think that the best IDE for Swing development is Netbeans7. Matisse is implemented best, stable and fast. You can drag and drop anything you like anywhere and the generated code is always clear and well organized.

Eclipse has a great GWT-Designer. It is also great for Struts2 programming etc. Both work great with Maven and Ant and Hibernate.

If you need three months for a project you can do with an IDE in two weeks, there is no point in not using an IDE. On the other hand there are also masochists between us...

I recommend programming with an editor and the shell only for beginners, until they get the grasp of things and understand layouts, jars etc. Using a graphical tool to get started is wrong, since the students learn to drag and drop components mechanically and relying upon lack to get things straight. Only as soon as one knows how things work, is IDE a one way street. You never look back again. There is amazing free software today.

miken32
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Costis Aivalis
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  • Eclipse has free (provided by Google) bi-directional Java GUI designer WindowBuilder Pro for Swing/SWT/GWT development with JGoodies FormLayout, MiGLayout and other layouts. – Grzegorz Szpetkowski Jun 14 '11 at 22:40
  • Thank you. I am aware of that. Read it recently here in SO and visited their site. I can not comment about the Google Swing-Designer since i haven't used it yet. Since GWT-Designer in Eclipse is beautiful i guess it is too! – Costis Aivalis Jun 14 '11 at 22:47
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Eclipse has a very thorough Java dev guide, which should tell you pretty much everything it will do for you. http://archive.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.1-200506271435/org.eclipse.jdt.doc.user.3.1.pdf.zip I think the guide does a decent job as far as helping you help yourself as well, so I think it could still be a worthy source for what you are seeeking.

TomHarrigan
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  • I appreciate the reference, but after scanning through it, it appears that this is really meant for people who plan to use Eclipse, rather than, say, just a commandline and a text-editor. One of the main reason why I'm avoiding IDEs is, frankly, my laptop can't handle it, even with running only Ubuntu 10.10 on here. – zeboidlund Jun 14 '11 at 21:19
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In other words, something which has enough information on the things which IDEs like Eclipse do for you, and how to manage those things without using an IDE.

So you acknowledge IDEs are great. Why aren't you using one? In particular, IDEs come with step by step documentation on how to accomplish these simple tasks. I suspect the reason there is little IDE agnostic documentation on these things is that most people actually use IDEs.

Great compiler error avoidance practices.

I for one wouldn't want to code without the Quick Fix feature of eclipse ...

meriton
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  • Why does it matter to you? I'm asking for an alternative, mainly because I don't want to rely on an IDe for me to learn how to program properly. Don't get me wrong - they're nice, but for someone who is learning they're nothing but a crutch. It's no different than relying on distortion to make an electric guitar sound nice. Regardless, I really shouldn't have to explain that to you, especially when you respond to my question with an "answer" which is really just another question. – zeboidlund Jun 14 '11 at 21:12
  • Let me rephrase my rhetorical question then: There is nothing "improper" about using an IDE. I think that perhaps your ultimate objective (which I assume to be writing programs) might be better served by not artificially constraining the tools you use. – meriton Jun 14 '11 at 21:20
  • I appreciate your suggestion, and I apologize if I appeared rash. I have a desire to learn methodologically, however, and for one my laptop can't even handle the power of Eclipse. I've tried numerous IDEs, and frankly haven't been satisfied. I've wasted so much time going from IDE to IDE, and have come to the conclusion that in this case they're just not for me. I would rather use Ant, and simply code something out using my own preferences rather than those which are assumed to work for me. I'm not saying IDEs are bad by any means; right now, they're just not what I'm looking for. – zeboidlund Jun 14 '11 at 21:23
  • The eclipse that is running in the background of my 4 year old notebook consumes a mere 100 MB of memory (according to the windows task manager), and I never noticed any severe lag with it. Is your hardware really that much worse that mine? Or did you try a bloated eclipse distribution by accident? – meriton Jun 14 '11 at 21:35
  • I must have tried a bloated Eclipse distribution, because last time I ran it, it was chucking up more than 300mb on my machine (Dell Inspiron 9300 - 1GB RAM) – zeboidlund Jun 14 '11 at 23:00
  • Here are the system requirements for Netbeans7, they say minimum RAM is 512MB, but they recommend 2GB. http://netbeans.org/community/releases/70/relnotes.html#system_requirements – Costis Aivalis Jun 14 '11 at 23:16
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    @Holland: IMHO best way for you is to just extend your laptop's RAM to 2GB (http://www.insidemylaptop.com/upgrade-memory-dell-inspiron-9300-laptop/). Memory is reasonably cheap. – Grzegorz Szpetkowski Jun 14 '11 at 23:22
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    Adding RAM is a good suggestion, will make your computer useful for a few more years. And here you find configuration options for Eclipse: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/142357/what-are-the-best-jvm-settings-for-eclipse/3275659#3275659 – Costis Aivalis Jun 15 '11 at 00:03
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    @Holland: I use the "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" (not the "Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers", which is quite a bit more resource hungry) – meriton Jun 16 '11 at 20:48