What to download for Java?

Hi :).

I will get straight to the point. I am a total n00b to Java. I am taking the AP course this year and I have no idea. Anyways, I want to try programming on my computer to practice. Here is what I want to do :1) Create "classes?"/"programs" You know like the hello world thing 2) Access my class ie like if i create a celc/farhen program, i want to be able to access it. Yep so that s it for now

I will repeat I am a total newbie, SO if there is any other thing necessary now or in the future, please tell me.

Ok so heres my question. What am I supposed to download. I have a Windows 7 Starter Ed Intel atom processor 32 bit and a lot of space. Here is the link to the java website Oracle Java Archive So please tell me, step by step what to do. Any extra tips (eg: download in the same folder etc. ) will be greatly appreciated.

In addition, will I be able to start writing programs simple and immediately like Public class Potato..... or am I supposed to do some random stuff?

Thank you for bearing with me.


Also I would like to point out that I am aware that my grammar sucks and i sound like an illiterate retard.

You have to have the JRE (the Java virtual machine) installed as well as the JDK (the Java compiler and other tools); both come with the JDK download. Everything is installed for you at a convenient place. Click 'JDK SE edition' (SE is the Standard Edition).

kind regards,

Jos

Hey :) Thanks for your answer :D Should I also download the java run time environment? And how about Netbeans ?

If you download the JDK, the JRE comes with it. Stay away from big IDEs like Netbeans (or Eclipse) until you feel comfortable with the bare bones JDK.

kind regards,

Jos

Hey, ok so I downloaded Java. I also specified a path (using tutorials) I just attempted to write my first program, a hello world one and I saved it on my desktop as a .java with the same name as the class. I then went on CD and typed java (class) and got a message claiming java could not find a class. After searching on the net a bit, I the did CD desktop then I tried java (the name of class) and i still got the error. What is the problem?

Did you compile your source code file? e.g.

javac YourClass.java
java YourClass

kind regards,

Jos

Thank you sooooo much :) It worked now and I just created my first Java program :D I have a few additional questions: What do you think of Jcreator, JCreator — Java IDE Should I wait till I master cmd-notepad or not. How can ask the user for input eg: I ask him to enter a number and I ++ it or something. Also, do you have any tips or recommendations or common errors, like the one I did.

Thank you again for putting up with my n00biness. Have a good day.:beer:

Congrats with successfully taking the first hurdle; some people swear that you should go through all those nasty details of command line compilation and running your Java programs; others swear that an IDE is the way to go; I'm neutral about this: I can do both but I prefer an IDE just because I like the idea of someone/something else doing the nasty work for me ;-) For the IO stuff: first download and install the API documentation (or at least bookmark it) and read about the Scanner class.

kind regards,

Jos

It's hard to beat the line by line debugging of an IDE, especially for a beginner. While it is important to know what your IDE is actually doing for you, some of the tools can be very helpful. The single greatest feature of the IDE when I was learning was the ability to inspect the state of any variable at any point during execution. I solved many logic errors in this way as a newbie!