

In my blog post Learning Java via Simple Tests, I wrote about how I sometimes like to use a simple text editor and command-line tools to write, build, and run simple applications. This post focuses on how to do just that. A recent Java subreddit thread called " Compiling Java Packages without IDE" posed the question, "is a command that compiles a group of java files that are inside a package into a separate folder (let's just call it bin), and how would I go about running the new class files?" The post's author, kylolink, explains that "When I started out using Java I relied on Eclipse to do all the compiling for me and just worried about writing code." I have seen this issue many times and, in fact, it's what prompted my (now 4 years old) blog post GPS Systems and IDEs: Helpful or Harmful? I love the powerful modern Java IDEs and they make my life easier on a daily basis, but there are advantages to knowing how to build and run simple Java examples without them.
