Practical Java - Development Environments

Question

I've had several classes - university level - on Java. However, what these classes lack is some practical approach to Java - or, to programming as a whole. Things you can only learn in a business.

However, since I am not allowed to use Java on the workfloor, I don't get to learn this now - even though I would like to.

So I guess what I'm asking for is any number of plain have-to-know Java resources. Things concering, for example, what Ant is and why and how to use it; using revision control systems from your IDE; standard Java libraries you would use often ... Anything that would help with actual software development, really.

As some side information, I've been using Eclipse for about four years now, and I feel at home there.

Answer 1

When I want to get a particular class specification, I go to Sun's Java documentation.

Another excellent resource that will certainly give you the reference material (searchable!) to answer any java question would be this torrent containing ~100 ebooks on Java, sorted by directory on various topics (like Ant, Eclipse, or Swing).

Answer 2

I have a system that works fairly well for class assignments and for projects as well. Firstly, I create one Eclipse project per class. This way I can re-use classes from previous assignments. You can also customize your classpath by adding another project as a library.

I use the Maven plugin for Eclipse M2Eclipse. Not only does this give you the ability to search for libraries and add them easily but the exec:java plugin is an easy way to execute your code from the command line. It's helpful because when it executes your code, it uses a classpath that includes all linked Maven dependencies. If you aren't using external libraries, you might not need Maven but I've found it to be helpful to learn in preparation for the job market. It's fairly simple to start with plus there are a ton useful plugins for open source projects.

Next, for revision control I recommend Subclipse. You can get a free SVN account with a single login from Unfuddle.com. Link that up to your Eclipse environment and Import your project.