[Sussex] Java development IDE / compiler...

[Matt Taylor]

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Haven't posted in ages, but here goes. The advantage of using Jikes over javac 
from Sun is that it is quicker to compile all your .java files, noticeably 
so. This disadvantage is that it may not produce 100% identical byte code to 
Sun's compiler and therefore there is the odd chance that if run your classes 
on a Sun VM they may produce slightly different results. Hardly worth 
worrying about really.

As for an IDE I can't recommend highly enough Eclipse from www.eclipse.org
Download the v3.0 M8 version. On the fly code compilation and dynamic code 
replacement during execution are just a couple of very nice features. Huge 
amount of suport for automated code refactoring as well.

I think the reason that jikes is the standard on Debian is that Debian have 
issues with Sun's java licences, is that correct?

For the more hardcore java dev, look at the later realeases of gcc and their 
gcj compiler. It has the ability to compile .java and .class files to native 
machine code, eliminating the interpreter at runtime. Redhat have recently 
spent a lot of effort in getting the whole eclipse ide to run native using 
gcj and gij (the gcc java interpreter)

 
regards

Mattt



On Thursday 29 April 2004 11:07, Dominic Clay wrote:
> I'm not sure about jikes (I understand it is good, but I've never used it) 
> but if you download (any of) the sun jdks one part of this will produce a
> jar from the class files.
>
> As an aside if you are a MS user too (heaven forbid of course!) you can use
> winzip to package up a series of java classes into a zip file and then
> rename it *.jar .  Ensure you include the manifest in the pre compressed
> directory structure and you will have a bonafide jar file. (I wouldn't be
> surprised if the same went for the tar utility too but I've never tried :)
> ) See you all tonight...
> Cheers,
>
> Dominic
>
> Steve Dobson <steve at dobson.org> wrote:
> Mark
>
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 04:54:24PM +0100, Mark Harrison wrote:
> > OK people...
> >
> > ... quick question, what's the best way to get started with Java
> > development under Linux?
> >
> > I have a working JVM... but what I need is a compiler to get from
> > source code to a .jar file.
> >
> > Can some one point me at a good URL for this? (or is there likely
> > to be one already on my Debian PC without me knowing?)
>
> Jikes is the standard Java compiler for Debian. But I normally
> download the JDK from sun and use that.
>
> Steve
>
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- -- 
"I think there is some methodology in my travels."

George W. Bush
March 5, 2001
Speaking to the press in Washington, D.C.
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