Working at Home

last updated December 24, 2012

You will need to install, at most, two pieces of software: The Java Development Kit (JDK), and the Eclipse editor. The directions differ based on your operating system.

1) Install Java Development Kit (JDK)

If you have taken a previous CSE course and have Java JDK installed on your computer already, you may be able to skip this step. Macs often come with Java pre-installed.

Follow the above link and click the large "Download" button near the top that has the label, "Java Platform (JDK)". (You do Not need other features such as "JavaFX" or "NetBeans").

On most operating systems, once you have finished downloading the JDK file to your Desktop, you must install JDK on your system. Do this by double-clicking the JDK installer file you saved on the Desktop. You can choose all the default options during installation.

2) Install Eclipse editor

Eclipse is our suggested primary editing software for this course. Short instructions for installing it are:

  • Go to eclipse.org/downloads.
  • Click the link titled "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers". (This is usually NOT the first link in the list; you do NOT want the "IDE for Java EE developers".)
  • Download the ZIP file, extract its contents, and then run eclipse.exe to start the program.

Former TA Daniel Otero has written a more comprehensive Eclipse tutorial:

Because the web pages change frequently and because you are smart and resourceful students, we won't provide detailed instructions here for how to download and install these programs. If you get stuck, please contact your TA and/or the instructor for help.

This document and its content are copyright © Marty Stepp, 2013. All rights reserved.
Any redistribution, reproduction, transmission, or storage of part or all of the contents in any form
is prohibited without the author's expressed written permission.