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The Essentials
First you will need to download the JDK Package from sun. You can find that
here
, along with a great
tutorial from Sun. One problem is that the JDK is pretty big to download from home. Some people go
to the bookstore and buy a book with CD included.
Next you will need an IDE (Integrated Development Enviroment). Let me recommend
JCreator, which is free!
Also you will need some graphics capabilities to plot out your
results. I guess there are some good java packages out there...it
depends on your specific needs! If you are doing image processing,
java can easily do that. Another approach to consider
is Gnuplot. This is a free, full-featured
scientific plotting program that will give you most of what you want.
The problem with this approach is that it will require you to
export your data from your Java program, then plot it in Gnuplot. But once you figure out
how to do this, its no problemo.
Some useful java webpages
- JavaCoffeebreak.com:. Tutorials and interesting articles.
- Javaworld
- This page is excellent: DocJava.
Among other things it has a program called Kahindu that does image
processing in Java, with source code included. Plus it was
easy to setup and get working on my computer!
-
Here is an interesting page that has, among other things, the
source code
in java for the fft. The FFT(Fast Fourier Transform) is an important tool for scientists and engineers.
-
Another java fft page, including source code, is
here. This one has some nice graphics.
Java for scientists and engineers
Lately I've got started learning java. It's not that hard, especially if you are familiar with C++.
My particular interest is scientific and engineering programming. Why did I choose Java, instead of Fortran, or C++?
No reason actually! Some people say that you should learn several languages. But I can say that Java is a great choice
for engineering programming.
Let me briefly comment regarding a program called MATLAB, which
is widely used by engineers. MATLAB is given out pretty much free
to university professors and grad students. But if you want to
use it once you get out of the university, it will cost you
about $1900. Now I can understand that they need to make their
money. On the other hand, I think its a pretty cheesy game to play.
So if you are a student and have the opportunity to use MATLAB,
maybe you should think twice. Learning Java or C++ may be
harder...but on the other hand, getting Java is free!
I'll also comment on another program Mathematica. This program
was priced at only $1300, which is getting close to reasonable.
Mathematica does have a lot of nice features. Now I'm not an expert
in Mathematica, but I did take a careful look at it. I found that
Mathematica doesn't really support procedural programming. For some
crazy reason, you have to write your whole program in one line.
They call it a new paradigm. I call it "not what I want". It
may be what you want, though. Who knows?
By the way, here are some useful commands in linux.