The first step to java-happiness is to install the Java platform and development environment. In this instance, we are going with the Netbeans IDE from Sun. This may be a little interesting, as I will be using Fedora Core 2 Linux and Turtle will be using a windows environment.
Our goal is to have this step completed by the morning of Sept 12.
I have installed the Netbeans 3.6 and it ran through the Quick Start Guide (http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/quickstart-36.html) just fine.
First impressions:
The autocomplete is very seductive! Especially so as I do most of my development in Emacs sans any fancy project/code management. Nifty features like the semi-automagical creation of import statements ups the “neat-o” factor.
Overall, I have a warm fuzzy feeling about this project so far. Bring it on!
I’m at the same place and I too like the features and think it’s quite robust for a free download. I still have some confusion about the real-time debugger, specifically why I can’t ‘step into’ the library functions. Admittedly, I haven’t spent a lot of time myself trying to figure that out.
Also when I do the code completion for that .Date () stuff, it doesn’t add the ()s on mine and I had to type those in on my own. No big deal, and probably some Bill Gates middle finger to the Sun program that I’ll never figure out.
Sorry I’m slow to join up with you guys on this. If I’m going to be writing code right now, I need it to be either for work or for school. I would like to learn this stuff with you, but just don’t know if I have the time, energy or inclination to work on three separate code projects at once.
We have a loose timetable, but other than that, it is very free form. You will be able to catch up if and when you decide to jump in and start playing with the IDE, etc.
Here’s an update on the progress I made last night. 1) I successfully compiled multiple packages and had the classes work together to do something stupid. You were right, there’s nothing to it, you don’t even have to “include” the external packages as long as they’re in the right place. I also successfully coded 2) and application that opened a pop-up window and I drew lines and colored lines and crap like that in it and 3) I wrote and executed an applet along the same lines.
And with that, I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things. After you get back from vacation (what’s the time frame on that again?) I say we actually come up with a development plan for some kind of project. I’d like to use XML too, just to say I did. Maybe we could work on that music store thing and create some kind of interface where a user could shop and add things to his “shopping cart” and stuff like that? Or maybe we should look into the database connectivity a bit first since it seems like we’d need it for something along those lines?
Oh yeah, also there’s a “modules” section under one of those “Help” choices on the IDE with tons of links to free downloads for stuff like CORBA and Clear Case. I know those are two things I need for the job in Colorado so I’d like to look into that too. I will say that some of the stuff said it was for NetBeans 3.5 and I think we downloaded 3.6 so I don’t know if it will play nice, but it’s probably worth a shot and I’ll look into it sometime. I could kick around that stuff a bit while you’re on vacation.