Job Ready Java

Lesson 2Installing a Development Environment: NetBeans

This lesson walks you through the process of installing NetBeans 12, which you can use for the remaining lessons in this book.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

• Know the value of using an integrated development environment (IDE)
• Understand the core parts of an IDE
• Install NetBeans using the automated installer
• Install the NetBeans binaries
• Be able to start NetBeans

NOTE

To install NetBeans, you must first have a Java Development Kit installed on your computer, which you did in the previous lesson. If you did not go through Lesson 1, you will need to complete those steps prior to continuing with this lesson.

GETTING STARTED

NetBeans is a Java IDE, which stands for integrated development environment. The IDE is where a developer does most of their work when developing software programs, and it includes tools that help identify errors in the code as well as an interface for complicated development projects.

In this course, we will use NetBeans 12. If you already have NetBeans 12 installed and you can open it without errors, then you can skip this lesson. If you have problems opening NetBeans 12, see the troubleshooting steps near the end of each set of instructions in the following sections, depending on your operating system.

UNDERSTANDING THE VALUE OF AN IDE

The IDE is the single most important tool in your developer toolbox. The IDE is where you will write and compile, ...