Looking for the Right Java Guide [closed]

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And by the right guide, I mean one which doesn't necessarily focus entirely on how to program in Java, but puts forth a bit of effort on everythi开发者_运维百科ng else. In other words, something which has enough information on the things which IDEs like Eclipse do for you, and how to manage those things without using an IDE.

Some examples of what I'm looking for:

• How to import Java files without packaging them first.

• How to specify directories for file/package imports, and where that specification needs to be placed.

• How to use Gedit to effectively program in Java with nothing but a few plugins and command line for compilation.

• Great compiler error avoidance practices.

Seriously, I've looked enough now to come to the conclusion that Google really can't just hack what I need, and my best bet is an actual resource filled with lots of information.

If anyone has any ideas or thoughts on where I should look, or even an answer to any of these questions specifically, I would greatly appreciate the input.

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IMHO you can't effectively program in Java without IDE (especially working on bigger project). You should learn about using/setting CLASSPATH, also check documentation for basic JDK commands (javac, java, jar, javadoc etc.).

Eclipse IDE has support for other important project tools e.g. Ant and Maven (for example with M2Eclipse plugin), so you can learn them too if you want.

Check this question for more lightweight IDE than Eclipse.

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Java programming is quite a broad area. You may wish to do web-programming or Swing and there are lots of frameworks and framework combinations to work with.

If you want to be productive there is no way you can survive, especially for large projects, without using one IDE, or maybe even two. You will need a simple JUnit integration, as well as a debugger and automatic code generation for POJO methods, and autocompletion and refactoring capability and you name it.

I think that the best IDE for Swing development is Netbeans7. Matisse is implemented best, stable and fast. You can drag and drop anything you like anywhere and the generated code is always clear and well organized.

Eclipse has a great GWT-Designer. It is also great for Struts2 programming etc. Both work great with Maven and Ant and Hibernate.

If you need three months for a project you can do with an IDE in two weeks, there is no point in not using an IDE. On the other hand there are also masochists between us...

I recommend programming with an editor and the shell only for beginners, until they get the grasp of things and understand layouts, jars etc. Using a graphical tool to get started is wrong, since the students learn to drag and drop components mechanically and relying upon lack to get things straight. Only as soon as one knows how things work, is IDE a one way street. You never look back again. There is amazing free software today.

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Eclipse has a very thorough Java dev guide, which should tell you pretty much everything it will do for you. http://archive.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.1-200506271435/org.eclipse.jdt.doc.user.3.1.pdf.zip I think the guide does a decent job as far as helping you help yourself as well, so I think it could still be a worthy source for what you are seeeking.

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In other words, something which has enough information on the things which IDEs like Eclipse do for you, and how to manage those things without using an IDE.

So you acknowledge IDEs are great. Why aren't you using one? In particular, IDEs come with step by step documentation on how to accomplish these simple tasks. I suspect the reason there is little IDE agnostic documentation on these things is that most people actually use IDEs.

Great compiler error avoidance practices.

I for one wouldn't want to code without the Quick Fix feature of eclipse ...