Our Programming Environment:
Editors, the Console Window and IDEs
On the Windows platform you have a choice of editors, including Vim (an enhanced version of vi that may be freely installed) and even Microsoft's Notepad. And, of course, you also have the console window in which to compile and run Java programs.
Note that these scenarios are a far cry from using an "IDE" (Integrated Development Environment), but when you are first learning a language there is something to be said for dealing hands-on with the actual source code at the lowest level.
There are now many IDEs available for use in developing Java software, from the very powerful (and very complex) like Eclipse and NetBeans to the much simpler (like JCreator and BlueJ). As the course progresses we may look at using one of these if time permits, once we are familiar and comfortable with the basic tools and procedures in a simpler context.
There are many other tools available nowadays to the software developer (Microsoft Visio for producing UML diagrams, for example) and we shall talk about some of those as well.