Development Tools
Download the J2SE Software Development Kit (JDK 6 Update 16 with nothing else), to enable Java
development on your machine.
The Eclipse IDE is an excellent open source software environment for Java
development. It supports syntax-driven features such as refactoring,
reference and declaration finding, method name auto-completion, and
inline javadoc referencing.
Get the version for Java developers.
Subclipse is an Eclipse Team Provider plug-in providing support for Subversion within the Eclipse IDE. It is required for checking out
SVN projects from eclipse environment.
Non-Windows users should also install
JavaHL for working with Subclipse.
Includes links to all relevant documents for development tools, api,
core technologies, and platform architecture.
S.IM.PL Libraries
The S.IM.PL project develops, languages, architectures, and frameworks that integrate closely with
popular programming languages to ease the development of object-oriented applications. Below are links to guide pages of S.IM.PL sub-projects
Java Language
One of the most readable language specifications ever written.
A must read for the serious Java programmer.
An illustrated series of how-to-code examples and explanations.
A subsection of The Java Tutorial which focuses on core language concepts; object oriented programming concepts, language syntax, control flow, object lifecycle, and basic data types are covered in detail with plenty of examples.
JavaDoc comments are comments intended to be extracted from source
code, to provide API documentation. The
javadoc tool
does this.
For example, the Java API documentation (see
below) is generated in this way. You also need to use JavaDoc to document
your own programs. This document discusses aesthetic and functional
approaches to writing JavaDoc comments. It also describes all the
special syntax involved.
Java API
Java programmers keep this on tap for details about classes and
methods. Eclipse uses this to provide documentation in the context of
your code development.
Coveres core Java class libraries including I/O operations, threads and error handling.
Swing
A must read article that explains how Swing works, it covers Swing design goals, separable model architecture, and pluggable look and feel.
The best place to start learning about Graphical User Interface Programming with Java. It provides lots of great information illustrated with easy to follow examples and nice pictures.
Pictures of all the swing components in action, each picture links to documentation and examples dealing with that component.
This is similar to the visual guide to swing components, but instead shows examples of how the various layout managers work.
Covers, in great detail, how to write event listeners and provides information on all the events various components can generate.
Prefuse
prefuse is a toolkit for building interactive information visualizations. It is open source and written in Java. Get the beta version.
Documentation on using the prefuse toolkit.
Javadoc API for prefuse toolkit.