IDE's

We use the BlueJ IDE from http://www.bluej.org as it is free and relatively simple to use.

Recommendations of other teachers should be found on CompWiki.

We use the old awt (abstract windows toolkit) as it provides a reasonable level of functionality without being too complex for a beginning programming course. Swing is fun to do but introduces additional complications; however.

Schools running Java courses may use the console for input and output of text only

This should help them with the examination which uses the IBIO console Classes.

Thus the strategy adopted by us here may not be suitable for all schools and sets of candidates.

However, we will try to offer console equivalents to all of the program examples.

These pages attempt to give you some background about what computer programming is and how to get started in the Java language. The course uses the BlueJ IDE which is available for free download from http://www.bluej.org .

There are a lot of concepts which may well be new to you and most of them are abstract and therefore quite hard to understand at first. Most people find they have to persevere when learning to program for the first time.

However, as you continue through the course, some parts which were not clear, will suddenly become so, you will have many "Aha moments". Hopefully.

See the Introduction to computer programming concepts. Carry on to try your first Java program using BlueJ. From the introduction onwards the pages are designed to flow so you can navigate using the nav bar at the bottom of each page:

Anything else you need? Please let us know via the feedback page.

For those who prefer to "duck and dive", here is the "Core Map":

Related: [ Introduction | mastery index | Getting started ]

Navigating your way around the Java core pages.

Follow the next/previous links or use the index here.

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