Gather all hammers inside toolbox - version 3

Whenever I decide to get back into programming after a longer break, I often find myself wondering how to set up the tools again. What has changed since last time? Does everything still install the same way as it used to?

This is the third post on this topic — the first one was written back in 2009 and can be found here, while the second one came out in 2019 and is available here. Let’s see what has changed since then.

Our goal remains the same — to build applications in Java. And we want to quickly set up all the essential tools we’ll need for that:

1. Java JDK
2. IDE
3. Git
4. Maven

As before, all things will be installed in C:\Development. 

After installing the tools, we’ll go classic and create a simple "Hello World" project using the installed JDK - with the code safely managed under Git version control.

Installing Java

This is where things have changed the most. We used to have a free JDK from Sun, then from Oracle — all nice and simple — until version 1.8, when commercial licensing entered the picture. Fortunately, free alternatives are still around, such as OpenJDK from Oracle or Amazon Corretto from… Amazon, of course :) And let's use JDK from Amazon.

Step 1: Download zip for Windows 64 from here.

Step 2: Create directory C:\Development\Java\AmazonJDK\Java25_64bit and extract downloaded zip there:

Step 3: After extract create/edit system variable named JAVA_HOME with value C:\Development\Java\AmazonJDK\Java25_64bit then modify Path system variable by adding %JAVA_HOME%\bin at the end.

Step 4: Verify Java installation by opening command line and type java -version and javac -version. You should see informationa about Java installed:

Installing IDE

Step 1: Create directory C:\Development\Jetbrains\Idea

Step 2: Download and install application named JetBrains Toolbox from here. If you have a JetBrains account, sign in to it from within the installed application — this way, if you already own a license for any of the tools, everything will activate automatically without any extra steps.

Step 3: In the Toolbox application, point to the default installation path you created in step 1 for all your development tools.

Step 4: Choose IntelliJ IDEA (Community for free or Ultimate if You have licene) and install it. It will be installed in the path from step 1.

Installing GIT

Step 1: Download Git for Windows from here. 

Step 2: Run the downloaded git installer and choose directory C:\Development\Git as the installation target. Then You can leave all options default, but I changed some of them, i.e I want to use my Notepad++ editor as default (not VIM), I do not want to use credential manager (I want to type password every time)

Step 3: Verify installation and basic configuration.

Open command prompt and execute command git --version to see if git responds. After that configure user and email by typing commands (replace XYZ with Your value):

git config --global user.name "XYZ"
git config --global user.email "XYZ"

Below is an example of running all these commands in action:

Installing Maven

Maven will be used for dependency managment, building and running future apps. Idea comes with bundled Maven, so we do not have install our version. But similar to installing Java, we will install our own version of Maven.

Step 1: Create directory C:\Development\Maven. Then download Maven (binary zip archive) from here and unpack it to the created directory.

Step 2: Create directory C:\Development\Maven\repository for artifacts downloaded by Maven:

Step 3: Tell Maven to use created above directory as a repository. Locate Maven settings file named settings.xml and add a line inside:

Step 4: Add Maven's bin folder to the system PATH variable in order to use maven commands from console.

Step 5: Verify if Maven is installed correctly. Open command line and execute command: mvn --version. You should see similar information:

Hello World in Java using above tools

We’ve got JDK, IDE, Maven, and Git all set up. Now let’s create a sample application that puts all these tools to good use.

Step 1: Open Intellij and create a new Java project. Give it a name HellWorld, make it controlled by Maven, and select our installed JDK:

Step 2: Open generated project and run its main class by clicking green play button as seen on below screen:

In the console, you can see that the project is being compiled and executed using our JDK.

Step 3: Let’s put this project under Git version control. 

First we have to tell where is our Git installed - just open settings, type in Git and chose already installed Git. InteliJ will automatically autodetect the path, just click Test button to display installed version:

Next, we need to add our project to a local Git repository. We do this by running the git init command in the project’s source directory. There are two ways to do it:

• Open the project folder in Windows Explorer, right-click inside it, and choose "Open Git Bash here" or
• Run the same command directly from the IntelliJ terminal.

Let’s go with the second option — but first, let’s make sure IntelliJ uses Git Bash as its default terminal instead of the standard Windows one (cmd.exe). Open settings again and find settings for Terminal:

After apply just open the terminal and run git init command there:

That all. Project is fully set up and saved in local Git repository.