Local Setup – IDE – IntelliJ IDEA

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CAUTION: If you don’t have Java installed. Then please stop and first follow:

Local Setup: Java JDK

There is nothing stopping you from using your favorite text editor when coding. However, I don’t want to remember:

boilerplate code syntax,
to manually format each line of code,
the package name in the current dependency version for a random library class, or
the command line arguments needed to invoke unit tests, when I could instead hit a play button.

To that end, an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is a quite handy tool when you are coding / troubleshooting.

There are lots of IDEs available. Which you use on the job will likely be influenced by the team with which you are working. Having the same IDE used between teammates makes local troubleshooting easier, but it often isn’t critical.

For this example, let’s setup IntelliJ IDEA community edition. It is free to download and use.

Choose the option that best matches your computer and installation style preferences. Follow the instructions on that page to do the actual installation:

We will discuss configuration / settings in a separate post.

Coding Chica