The best environment for programming in Java

From WikiJava

In this article there's a list of the best programs that simplify the work of a Java programmer. The programs listed here are not technically a MUST install, but they simplify a lot the activity of producing software in Java. If you are a new Java programmer you may want to consider trying them out.

Eclipse

For the Java Programming language there exist many different IDEs. Eclipse is an open source IDE which has developed over the years and for it's functions and efficiency is the most used one.

What can you do with Eclipse?

1. Enterprise Development (J2EE)
2. Embedded and Device Development
3. Rich Client Platform (loads of typing aids like the wonderful ctrl+space)
4. Rich Internet Applications (you can configure it to deploy and manage any Application server you want)
5. Application Frameworks (It supports Spring, Struts and much more)
6. Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
7. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Add to this that it's very simple to use and very easy to install.

To download it go to :

• http://www.eclipse.org/

Total Commander

There are many other commanders (the first one is very old, I remember using it in DOS), but in my opinion Total Commander is the best for usability, speed, reliability and functions.

To download it go to :

• http://www.ghisler.com/

Notepad ++

Notepad ++ is another open source text editor, it is very well supported and maintained, new versions come very often and it's made specifically for developers. Its functions include:

• code highlighting
• bracked matching
• advanced text search and replace (also using regular expressions)
• autocompletion
• Multi document
• Indentation
• Macros

To download it go to :

• http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Beyond compare

This program can compare full directories or single files, you can open any file and see which lines are different and what's different, you can also edit both the files. This is very useful when merging manually. Eclipse has a compare tool inbuilt, but I consider beyond compare more light weight and easier to use.

To download it go to :

• http://www.scootersoftware.com/

Free mind

Free mind is an open source tool for creating mind maps. A mind map is basically a set of interlinked nodes in where you can write whatever you want. They are very powerful for organizing ideas and keeping a track of the thoughts. Freemind is very powerful because nodes can contain links to websites or to files in your computer or even can run programs. I often use it in complex projects for remembering the names of the servers, the configurations I used. The tasks I will perform and so on.

To download it go to :

• http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

Firefox

Well there's no need to explain what's a web browser, and what firefox did to the world of web browsers. I will mention few reasons why Firefox is the browser of choice of the almost entirety of software developers:

• it supports plugins
• it's closer to the HTML standard than the counter part.
• it's free
• it's available on many platforms and the settings can be cross used between separate installations.

To download it go to :

• http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Firebug

Since I know Firebug I almost can't work without it. And I wonder how could I survive without it.

Firebug is an extension for Firefox it allows you to analize any web page on the flight, modify it's structure, and CSS and Javascript on the fly, seeing the results of your changes straight away on your loaded page, without even reloading it. You can even explore the javascript DOM and debug the javascript functions. Really useful.

To download it go to :

• http://getfirebug.com/

Web Developer

Web Developer cover the same area of Firebug, but in a slightly different way. Sometimes using just Firebug won't be enough for solving problems with the webpages, in this case Web Developer comes at help. Probably the function I use the most from it is the outline.

To download it go to :

• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

JAD, the fast JAva Decompiler

Not always the documentation of the libraries and APIs are clear enough or make you understand how the code works. In many cases to figure out how to use the apis or other libraries we need to quickly have a look at what's going on under the hood of a compiled class file. JAD decompiles the class files giving you back legible Java code.

To download it go to :

• http://www.kpdus.com/jad.html

JADclipse

This is another plugin for Eclipse which enables it to connect it to JAD. The result is that whenever you want to see the source code of a class it first check if Eclipse has source code attached for the class, if not it decompiles it in JAD and shows you the decompiled version. You sometimes don't even notice that you are seeing a decompiled file.

To download it go to :

• http://jadclipse.sourceforge.net/

Subversion

Subversion is a versioning system. Whenever you do a change to your software (which you do all the time at each stage of the project) you commit your changes to the subversion repository which keeps track of all the changes. This allows you to revert at any time to any previous version of your code, if you mess up with something you can always get back to a working version and start over again. Other useful features of Subversion are:

• branching and merging
• Blame, see who's responsible of some code
• publishing the code as a web site.

To download it go to :

• http://subversion.tigris.org/

Mylyn

Mylyn is a task focused interface for Eclipse. It's basically a plug in that comes bundled with Eclipse and helps the developer to think about a project more in terms of tasks. It has a very cool feature which links the tasks to the actual code. With this when you are working on a task Mylyn shows you only the methods and classes related to it, making it a lot easier to find the relevant information and classes.

To download it go to :

• http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/

Aptana

Aptana is an alternative distribution of Eclipse specialised in web development, if you are designing your web application using Javascript, ajax or other similar technologies, Aptana may help you quite a lot.

To download it go to :

• http://www.aptana.com/

Comments from the users

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Aptana VS Eclipse J2EE

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Netbeans ?

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Write about Netbeans

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Contents 1 Eclipse 2 Total Commander 3 Notepad ++ 4 Beyond compare 5 Free mind 6 Firefox 7 Firebug 8 Web Developer 9 JAD, the fast JAva Decompiler 10 JADclipse 11 Subversion 12 Mylyn 13 Aptana 14 Comments from the users