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Learning Java made easy

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CIOL Bureau
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SANTA CLARA: Sun Microsystems, Inc. together with the NetBeans community and the University of Kent announced the general availability of a new version of the open source NetBeans Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the NetBeans IDE/BlueJ Edition. This freely available edition of NetBeans offers a seamless migration path for students transitioning from educational tools to a full-featured, professional IDE.

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BlueJ is a programming environment developed at the University of Kent, UK, and Deakin University, Australia aimed specifically at beginning programmers. It offers educational tools, such as visualization and interaction facilities that greatly aid the learning of object-oriented concepts.

BlueJ has become one of the most popular environments for programming education in introductory programming courses and is included in the curriculum in more than 600 universities and colleges around the world.

NetBeans IDE offers developers a standards based approach for building Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE), Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) applications for increased productivity.

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"I have been waiting for the NetBeans/BlueJ edition to come out since I saw how fantastic the Beta was to use," says Jason Morin, Math and Computer Science Instructor, Overland High School, Cherry Creek School District, Aurora, Colo. "NetBeans/BlueJ is now used in my Advanced Placement Computer Science class. I tried Eclipse but it is a nightmare for teachers to manage and Eclipse is difficult to grasp for students who are new to programming. I wanted and needed a 'transition' to a professional IDE tool, and that is exactly what the NetBeans/BlueJ edition provides" he added.

"We are thrilled that the release of NetBeans/BlueJ Edition coincides with the beginning of a new school year," said Laurie Tolson, vice president of Java Development and Platform Engineering for Sun Microsystems, Inc. "While BlueJ allows teachers to instruct students on object oriented development -- now the standard introductory phase of learning to program -- the NetBeans/BlueJ edition provides a logical next step enabling students to extend their applications beyond simple models while learning to use a professional development environment."

BlueJ is a project at the Computing Laboratory, University of Kent, and Deakin University, Australia. It is part of the activities of the "Sun Center of Excellence in Object-Oriented Education" at the University of Kent.

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