For ICS 211 and the rest of your ICS career it is highly recommended that you set up a good software development environment. In this experience you will begin the process of creating a high quality software engineering environment on your computer.
This is an optional experience.
Preferred hardware is a laptop with >= 2 Ghz processor, >= 2 GB RAM, >= 20 GB free disk space, and wireless access. As noted in the lecture, a Dell Laptop satisfies these requirements for $500-$1000. Note that “netbooks” are not suited for professional software development: while more portable, their screens are too small and they generally have less RAM and slower CPUs.
An up to date release of Mac OS/X or a Linux-based OS are the preferred operating systems for this class. If you must use Windows, you should use the latest release.
Download and install the Java 8 JDK and JavaDoc documentation from here. Be sure to download and install the “JDK” package, which includes both the JRE and additional tools such as ‘jar’ , ‘javadoc’, and ‘javac’. Don’t download the “JRE” package.
On Windows, you must change the default installation directory to a file path that does not contain spaces. The default on Windows is c:\Program Files\Java, which is bogus. Change it to something like c:\Java. You will run into problems if you install the JDK inside c:\Program Files.
Add {java}/bin to your PATH variable, where {java} is replaced by the location where you installed it.
Also download the Java SE 8 Documentation. Unzip the documentation package into {java}. If you have installed Java correctly, then you should be able to type “java -version” and “jar -help” at the command line and get reasonable responses. If you have installed the documentation correctly, then you should be able to retrieve it in a browser using a local URL such as:
file:///C:/Java/jdk1.8.0_65/docs/index.html.
The most useful link is to the JavaDocs, at an URL like: file:///C:/Java/jdk1.8.0_65/docs/api/index.html.
You must be running Snow Leopard (10.6) or later. To ensure you are running Java 8 by default, see the JDK 8 Mac Install Page.
You can program in Java just using a text editor and the Java compiler and virtual machine. Please don’t. Modern IDEs make you a vastly more productive developer. There are many popular IDEs available:
Install your chosen IDE and learn how to use it. Follow the tutorials and become proficient with your IDE.
Since Eclipse is installed in the labs so you might want to use Eclipse. We have some Eclipse configuration tools to help you write code the follows the Java Coding Standard.