I will recommend using the Eclipse IDE and will use it in class examples.

Another very similar IDE is NetBeans, which can be downloaded from Sun's site together with the SDK.

Both these IDE's provide a single place to:

• Write java programs
• Compile
• Execute
• Debug (E.g., step through execution one instruction at a time)

Instructions for installing and using Eclipse are also on the Documents page.

Note that the SDK should be installed first and then Eclipse.