Hello.

I am new to Java and I am easing into this new language via some basic tutorials.

I am using the Borland 2005 IDE; it is powerful and I quite like it save for that it seems incredibly bulky, hogs all resources, freezes, tries to shut itself down, etc, etc. It is at times a pain to work with, truthfully. Has anyone else used Borland for Java? Have you similar experiences? Perhaps it is my machine (its RAM is not very strong I admit, but still) I just wonder if it is Borland 2005, my machine, or both.

What IDE would you recommend for a Java beginner to start off with?

Thank-you in advance for your input and reply.

Matty D.

I personally prefer an editor such as Textpad since it does not provide code completion so it really exposes to you to the language instead of writing the code for you (great for beginners).

BlueJ is a disaster. It does NOT teach you programming, it teaches you some button clicking.

If you want to learn the language, don't use any IDE but a text editor and command line.
That way you'll learn the language rather than the tool (which is what way too many kids do, and end up utterly lost when they're presented with an environment where they don't have the exact same version of that tool set up exactly the same as at school).

Meh, I disagree with that and I never said it teaches you anything. It's useful for typing code and compiling code. If someone ever puts themselves in a position where they are lost without their tool, it certainly isn't their tool that's at fault.