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Java Installation

  • JRE
  • JDK
  • java
  • javac

There are several implementation of Java, one currently controlled by Oracle and it can be downloaded from Oracle.com but as far as I know there are various problematic licensing restrictions. A better choice is to download the Open JDK.

On MS Windows install it by unipping the .zip file and then configuring the PATH to include the bin/ directory.

Before we even write a line of code we would like to make sure that both the java compiler and the java runtime is accessible for us. So we open a command line window or a Power Shell window and we type in javac --version and java --version respectively.

On MS Windows

> javac --version
javac 14.0.2
> java --version
openjdk 14.0.2 2020-07-14
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 14.0.2+12-46)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 14.0.2+12-46, mixed mode, sharing)