Introduction to Java: Working with IDEs and the Product Life Cycle

One thing involves heavily in SDLC is an IDE. Every coder / organization will have their own preference when it comes to IDE, the reason behind maybe due to support, functionality, familiarity, plug-ins, etc.

To be honest, I haven't find my own preferred IDE yet, I hope to learn everything but at the same time master what's the benchmark of IDE in the market.

This purpose of this post is to generally share my understanding below:

• recognize how IDEs help speed development time
• sequence the stages in the product life cycle

* this post will be covering Java on IDE. 

IDEs and development time

1. First, as we are dealing with Java, we need to ensure our machine has Java development environment (JDK). JDK is available for free from the Oracle Java website.

To install the Java JDK, you need to:

1. go to "www.oracle.com/java:
2. choose the Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) link
3. download the version for your platform
4. follow the installation instructions
5. set your Java PATH, and
6. compile and run a sample java application

2. When you download and install the Java SE Development Kit, these items are installed:

• Java runtime environment, or JRE
• a Java Virtual Machine, or JVM, for the platform you use
• Java class libraries for the relevant platform
• a Java technology compiler
• additional utilities, such as utilities for creating Java archive, or JAR, files, and for debugging Java technology programs, and
• examples of Java technology programs

* the compiler is located in the /jdkversion/bin folder.

3. An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a tool that can assist your with developing Java application. There are several IDEs that you can use, for example: 

• Netbeans
• JDeveloper
• Eclipse

These IDEs include features such as full integration, easy deployment, and easy project development. There is also built-in source control and a smart editor. 

IDE help speed up development time by automating simple tasks, using code auto-completion, and integrating debugging. 

* Note: Smart editors in IDEs include features such as code completion and semantic coloring and hightlights that are not supported when a file in opened in a text editor such as Notepad. 

* Note: This post uses the Netbeans IDE for the course demonstrations and exercises. However, once you become familiar with an IDE, you can easily transfer your skills to any similar IDE of your choice. 

4. The Netbeans IDE 7.0 is comptible with and supports Java SE 7. The IDE's installer requires a JDK to install the IDE on your system, because Netbeans is a Java application. However, you can add additional JDK versions after Netbeans is in place, and you can choose which JDK version to use when you create a Netbeans project. The IDE is available with specific downloads that support various Java technologies. For example, you might choose to download and install the Java SE bundle only to install Netbeans and Java SE, or you can choose the Netbeans All bundle. 

* Note: Netbeans is available for free from Netbenas.org. There are several different bundles available. 

5.  In Netbeans, you work within the context of a project. A project consists of:

• an organized group of source files and associated metadata
• project-specific properties files
• an Ant build script and run settings, and
• the tools you'll need to write, compile, test, and debug your application

* You can create a main project with subprojects, and you can link projects through dependencies. So getting started is as easy as giving project a name. 

After you tell Netbeans the name of a new project, it then:

• creates a source tree with an optional skeleton class inside
• creates a folder for unit tests
• sets classpaths for compiling, running, and testing
• sets the Java platform on which the project runs, and
• creates an Ant built script - build.xml - which contains instructions that the IDE uses when you perform commands on your project, such as compile or run.