These instructions are written for Windows (and tested on a Windows 10 machine), mostly, but instructions would be similar for other OSs. Please ask if you're using a different OS, or if you have any problems.
It is OK to feel stressed, as you need to install several things, and the instructions cannot be perfect since we don't know which specific versions of things you get; take a deap breath .... and another ... and ask if you need help (both in D2L and directly emailing me).
The Java Development Kit (JDK) includes a Java compiler, standard library and virtual machine; You can download Oracle's JDK from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html.
Download some version of Java 8 (they have extra numbers like 8u65, those minor numbers are not terribly important). Notice you have to download and install the JDK, not just the JRE.
Go to IntelliJ's site, download the appropriate version for your computer (we only need the Community Edition, which is free), and follow their instructions.
We are lucky there are many free IDEs available for java; Although I will only support IntelliJ, feel free to try and use any of the other ones, like:
- Eclipse
- Netbeans
Also, Java files are plain text files, so you can use a regular text editor to edit them. My favorite simple editor right now is Visual Studio Code, available for Windows, Linux and Mac. On Windows, many people like Notepad++. Do NOT use a word processor (like MS-Word) to edit your code, as it will often introduce weird characters.
We will use GitLab as our code repository, but you still need a git client. The command line client is available at www.git-scm.com. I assume you have a command line client, like git-bash.
Go to GitLab and create an account. After that, email me the account name (and add in d2l) from your kennesaw email (so I know who you are); I will create a repo for the assignments and give you access, so you can create pull requests.