09-08-2008, 01:51 PM

I posted this topic a while ago, but I can't find it anymore, so I'll ask again. I've downloaded the lates version of Java for mac (se6) and it's sitting on my hard drive, but I don't know what to do next to get going. I bought the dummies series of books to start out with Java, and it comes with an IDE (j creator light). I haven't loaded it yet into the machine, because I dont' know what else I need (if anything) to start programming/learning. Can anyone out there tell me what else I need to do?

09-09-2008, 03:35 AM

Firstly - You don't need anything else, however as you become more proficient a better IDE (Eclipse or Netbeans) would be recommended.

You can write java code using a simple plain text editor.

And then you can compile and run the code from OSX's terminal, which is basically what j creator will do for you behind the scenes.

09-30-2008, 08:56 PM

Okay -- I'm not sure I said enough in my other posts. I was learning java on my old pc, so I'm very very new to mac. I'll start using text editor to write the programs, but how do I use terminal to run the programs? I have it on my machine, but all I get is a window. while I'm here, can anyone tell me how to open xcode? I know it's on my disc, and I thought I downloaded the right one (I think it was the package) but I get nothing.

10-01-2008, 03:39 AM

In the terminal there are two main commands for java, these are
java and javac

javac runs the java compiler

java executes a java program


so some examples

javac MyProgram.java (will compile MyProgram.java in the current directory)

java MyProgram (will execute MyProgram)

05-09-2012, 10:42 AM

Here is a great article about java programming on mac. There is a whole section about development on mac - unix navigation, environment variables, eclipse/tomcat/maven installation etc

http://bitbybitblog.com/java-on-mac