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What development kit is the most widely used? Which is the easiest to use?

Thanks in advance

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There are two sensible answers hidden in the thread: some people prefer a lightweight editor workflow while others prefer a full-featured IDE. asked which is most used and easiest, and the replies reflect personal taste more than a single “right” choice. Below are practical, experience-based pointers you can use to pick and get productive quickly.

Pick by needs, not hype:

  • Project size: small learning exercises work great in a text editor; larger or multi-module projects benefit from an environment with refactoring and navigation.
  • Debugging and runtime needs: if you will step through code often, inspect threads, or remote-debug, choose a tool with a strong debugger.
  • Build and dependency management: look for integration with your build system (Ant/Maven/Gradle) if you’ll manage libraries or automated builds.
  • Refactoring and search: “rename”, “find usages”, and quick navigation save hours on a mature codebase.
  • Learning curve and resources: pick something with good docs and plugins so you can grow into it.
  • Team/course standard: match what others use to avoid format and workflow friction.

Quick verification and troubleshooting (first 10 minutes)

  • Confirm the JDK works from the command line to separate tool issues from Java setup:
    javac Hello.java
java Hello
  • If compilation fails, check JAVA_HOME, PATH, and the classpath (-cp); ensure package folders match declared packages. If an IDE behaves oddly, reproduce the same compile/run on the command line — that isolates IDE config from Java problems.

A short test-drive (2 days): pick one editor and one IDE, import or create the same small project in each, verify build, run, set a breakpoint, perform a rename refactor, and commit to version control. That exercise makes the tradeoffs obvious. For learning, start simple to understand the compiler and classpath; when productivity bottlenecks appear, adopt the richer toolset.

Recommended Answers

All 10 Replies

Member Avatar for paradox814

I've used JCreator a bit and have come to like it it has little neat features so when you type Math. a litle of all the available methods will pop up automatically, as well as the areguments needed (ie int, int), not only will those methods pop up but all other inheirted methods for when you use it on a variable. Another neat feature is that you can collapse/expand methods that you don't want to see or even comments
see this for a screenshot

the program I use now is a editplus
http://editplus.com/
it supports many different languages and you can build your own custom tools into it
I have tools built in depending on whether I am working on Java 1.5.0, Java 1.4.2, Microsoft Visual C++, Metroworks C++, or PHP.
screenshot: http://editplus.com/ss/java.gif

Member Avatar for server_crash

I like JEdit.

If you were talking about the sdk, 1.4 I THINK is the widest used.

Member Avatar for jwenting

Neither JEdit nor JCreator are development kits :)

J2SDK 1.4.x are indeed probably the most widely used today, but I'd advise anyone taking up Java to start learning the 1.5 (5.0) from the outset as it is the future and by the time you're up to speed it will likely be prominent.

Member Avatar for paradox814

yes i know, but I am not a big fan of ide's myself that is why I try to keep it simple with a basic ascii text editor

Member Avatar for server_crash

yes i know, but I am not a big fan of ide's myself that is why I try to keep it simple with a basic ascii text editor

Same here. I actually enjoy using the a text editor and the command line. Although, I do like a Value added text editor like JEdit to highlight and indent my crappy code.

Member Avatar for stupidenator

I really like JCreator and all of its features. I also tried blueJ and I really disliked it. Eclipse sounds good just because of the easy way to make layouts for applications... but the code is hard to modify if the program wrote it.

Member Avatar for dakkar

I like very much GEL :-)

but also jEdit and JCreator are good choices!

for quick-edits are also useful Notepad++ and Programmer's Notepad

:twisted:

Member Avatar for stupidenator

Has anyone ever used or does anyone know anything about JGrasp? I saw that they were using that at a college I visited recently...

Member Avatar for miri

Eclipce!
IntelliJidea - is good for writing, but not suitable for other works.
NetBeans - not bad, but read the licence.

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