Gentoo Archives: gentoo-java

From: Joshua Nichols <nichoj@g.o>
To: Stuart Howard <stuart.g.howard@×××××.com>
Cc: gentoo-java@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-java] Startup advice
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 05:18:29
Message-Id: 43D709F2.9060505@gentoo.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-java] Startup advice by Stuart Howard
1 Stuart Howard wrote:
2 > Hi
3 >
4 > I am a Gentoo user with an urge to try my hand at coding, java seems
5 > to fit the bill as a language that has cross platform appeal and so
6 > on, you guys know the rest.
7 >
8 > My question is this, I want to spend my time learning the language not
9 > the various apps that allow me to do this so what would your
10 > recommendation be for a new starter such as myself.
11 > I seem to have a choice of using either blackdown or the sun packages,
12 > I have read sufficient to realise that the blackdown project was the
13 > original linux port of Sun's Java but Today what would you suggest as
14 > the platform to pick ie. is the Blackdown package well supported under
15 > Gentoo? will updates come promptly when considered stable? or the the
16 > Sun package better supported? and for that matter as a new user would
17 > I be better of with one or the other for a reason I have not yet come
18 > too?
19 >
20 Blackdown is as well supported as Sun on Gentoo, as far as JDK/JREs go.
21 The common belief is that Sun is faster than Blackdown, but I've never
22 seen any hard numbers. Aside from that, they should be functionally the
23 same.
24 > Next up would be an IDE, is Kdevelop good for java or is netbeans a
25 > good choice? again your experiance would be helpful at this stage, the
26 > netbeans site seems to imply that they provide functinality not
27 > available elsewhere will this mean that my code [once I get there ;) ]
28 > be specific to netbeans? or should I go for a fundamentalist approach
29 > and stick to "simple" approach and trusty vim?
30 >
31 I've heard good things aboug BlueJ [1] for an IDE for a beginner. The
32 idea is that you use that while learning the language, and then
33 eventually ween yourself off of it onto a more full-fledged IDE, like
34 netbeans or eclipse. Unfortunately, we don't have a package for it yet.
35
36 I personally live and die by Eclipse. It has a lot of functionality
37 built-in, in addition to the multitude of quality third-party plugins.
38
39
40 > Any Gentoo/general points will happily received
41 >
42 You may want to use ~arch keywords for your Java packages.There hasn't
43 been a lot of stablization going on recently, but this is something we
44 are currently working on.
45 > stu
46 >
47 > ps. You may wonder why I dont just read the websites, well what can I
48 > say but I am doing but inevitablly websites lead to a slanted view,
49 > after all people have spent their valable time to put it up there so
50 > of course they prefer there approach whereas as a list will grab a
51 > broader view on the subject.
52 >
53 >
54
55
56 - Josh
57 --
58 gentoo-java@g.o mailing list