Murach’s Java Programming: What software you need

[Pete Letkeman]

From that book's web site:

What software you need
This book teaches you how to develop Java applications using:

the Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE)

the top IDEs for Java programming: NetBeans (shown in the book) and Eclipse (covered in a downloadable PDF)

Although this book covers Java SE 9, almost all of the core features will work with all previous releases of Java...and will continue to work with future releases as well.
You can download Java for free from the Oracle website. Likewise, you can download the IDEs for free from the NetBeans website or the Eclipse website.

While I suspect you do not need use to NetBeans or Eclipse and that the software and software instructions are provided for convenience to the end user (like me).
That being said, at the moment my choice of Java source file editors is IntelliJ by Jetbrains. Are you aware of any inconsistencies, incompatibilities, etc which may arise if I open the Java source files using IntelliJ?  

[Campbell Ritchie]

You really only need a JDK to develop Java® programs; I am sure there will be no problems opening your code with IntelliJ rather than something else.

[Joel Murach]

Hi Pete,

Campbell is right that you really only need the JDK, a text editor, and a command prompt. However, that approach can get tedious, especially when there are so many great IDEs for working with Java, many of which are available for free.

With my book, I've worked hard to make it as easy as possible to use Netbeans or Eclipse. That's why the download for the book includes the projects in the NetBeans and Eclipse formats. Because of that, you can open the projects for each chapter with just a few clicks. The source code is the same for NetBeans and Eclipse, but each IDE uses different files for configuring the project. If you want to use IntelliJ with this book, you should be able to import the source code into an IntelliJ project. However, I suspect that's going to require a fair amount of work on your part. I think it would be a lot easier to just install NetBeans (which works similarly to IntelliJ).

I hope this helps. Thanks!

[Pete Letkeman]

Thanks for that. And wouldn't you know it, intellij has the ability to import Eclipse projects as noted here
https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/import-from-eclipse-page-1.html
I should have done the research, took only a few minutes, before creating the initial post.

[Joel Murach]

Ah, thanks for the info. The download for our book includes Eclipse projects, so if the IntelliJ import goes smoothly, you should be able to use IntelliJ with our book without any major problems. That's good for me to know, as I bet this will come up again before long!

[Pete Letkeman]

To be clear, I have not opened the sample projects, in IntelliJ so I can not tell you that it opens smoothly. However I do suspect that it will work fine (maybe after fiddling). I suggest that if you can get someone you trust to test this out then you many want to supply the information/instructions in an ecctra on the books web site. Keeping in mind that sometimes some vendors remove documentation, as such, it shouldn't be too hard to copy and paste the instructions.

[Joel Murach]

That's a good idea. I will consider adding this information to the FAQs document for this book that's available from our website. It looks like the conversion should work smoothly, but you never know. If you end up converting the Eclipse projects to IntelliJ projects, let me know how it goes. Of course, before adding this info to our website, I would test it on my system and try to make it more specific, so you could see exactly how to use it with my book. Thanks!

[Knute Snortum]

I've tried opening the Eclipse projects in IntelliJ 2017.2 Community version two ways.  

1) Open button or File > Open

Worked fairly well, won't find the JDK, will display a warning that SDK isn't set up and offer a link to setup.  After that, everything is okay.

2) File > New > Project from Existing Source

Works great, asks a bunch of import questions, but either the default works fine or it is clear what is being asked.

YMMV

[Joel Murach]

Hi Knute,

Thanks for passing along that info. I appreciate it!

And it's good to know that it's not too hard to convert the Eclipse projects for this book to IntelliJ if you prefer IntelliJ over Eclipse or NetBeans.