http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/
http://sjsu6.blackboard.com/webct/entryPageIns.dowebct
http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/faculty/pearce/modules/courses/cs46a
Click the download button for the latest version of Java SE. Select the platform and agree to the licensing requirements.
Click on the file for the offline installation. Don't use the download manager. Save the downloaded program to your desktop. When the download is complete, run the program by double clicking its icon. This will install the JDK on your computer. Accept all of the default settings.
A little further down on the same page you will see a download button for the latest Java SE documentation. Follow the same procedure to download and install this file. This is a web site that contains web pages documenting Java's massive class library.
After the web site has been installed, find the index page and open it using Firefox. Bookmark this page calling it something like local Javadocs. It might even be a good idea to put this bookmark on your Firefox toolbar because it is so important.
Never use Windows NotePad. It's the world's worst text editor. Instead, get a decent text editor like TextPad. It will beg you for money from time to time, but you can ignore these pleas or you can shut them up by sending them a few bucks. Just remember, someday you will be a programmer and have users ignoring your please for cash.
Windows creates a folder called My Documents for each user. All Windows applications try to get you to save your documents to this folder. The idea is that the relatively simple Windows file system is still too complicated for ordinary users to comprehend. This might be true, but programmers are not ordinary users, and therefore you should avoid having anything to do with My Documents.
Instead, you will create a directory (folder) at the top level of you C drive. You will organize it into subdirectories and sub-sub-directories according to your own logic. This is where all of your documents will be stored.
Create the following directories:
C:/smith/cs46a/hw
C:/smith/cs46a/labs
C:/smith/cs46a/sessions
C:/smith/cs46a/demos
In the demos use TextPad to create a file called Greeter.java:
public class Greeter {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println("Hello,
World!");
}
}
From TextPad see if you can compile (javac) and run (java) this file. If everything goes well, it means Java and TextPad have been properly installed.
IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. IDEs are power tools for programmers. The most popular IDEs are NetBeans and Eclipse. You should download and install the most feature-filled versions of each of these programs. By the end of the semester you should have experience using both of them and you should pick one for your future work. After that you should only use an IDE.
BlueJ is a fun baby ID that we will use to get started.