BlueJ first, obviously but what next, when, and why

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BlueJ first, obviously but what next, when, and
why?

• Ian Utting

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Overview

• BlueJ is a popular IDE for introducing beginners
  to OO programming in Java, but it was not
  designed to cater for students' needs as the
  systems they develop become more complex.
• This talk will look at issues in BlueJ's support
  for large, complex projects, appropriate
  jumping-off points for moving on to a more
  fully-featured IDE, and at work being undertaken
  by the BlueJ and NetBeans development teams to
  aid that transition.

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BlueJ

• BlueJ is a Java IDE targeted at beginners to
  programming, typically first-year CS
  undergraduates
• Its goals are to
• Introduce classes and objects from day 1
• Expose object fundamentals
• state
• behaviour
• multiplicity
• independence
• Let students experience objects
• Emphasise modelling
• Its in use at over 400 Universities, maybe
  250000 students a year, certainly ½ million
  downloads a year

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But

• There comes a point when students need to leave
  BlueJ behind them
• But they wont
• Problem is Packages (to an extent) but mainly
  just the number of classes in a package
• Lack of tool and framework support is any issue
  as the curriculum broadens
• J2ME/J2EE development/deployment
• GUI builders
• CVS
• Extensions are a help, but not a panacea

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Moving on to a grown-up IDE

• The step up to an out-of-the-box Professional IDE
  is still large
• We dont see commitment to teaching/supporting
  the transition its often FOFO by default
  rather than design
• BlueJs extensions ethos is offset in Pro IDEs by
  tick-list marketing (everything is turned on by
  default)
• There have been a number of attempts to produce
  cut-down versions of Pro IDEs for teaching
• Gild (U. Victoria, Canada) and Penumbra (Purdue)
  on top of Eclipse
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Express
• Maybe the problem is that they dont have a
  starting-point, so theyre trying to produce
  BlueJ replacements, not BlueJ follow-ons?

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An aside on flattery
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An aside on flattery
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An aside on flattery
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Designing a BlueJ follow-on

• Goals
• Everything thats visible must be familiar, or
  highly valuable
• Everything thats not familiar should be part of
  the new environment
• This should be the last transition for students
  (in this thread)
• Installation should be trivial
• Evolution (towards the full-blown Pro IDE) should
  be easy
• Occasional reversion to BlueJ should be supported
• Choice of which-new-features-to-reveal is going
  to be very dependent on curriculum

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NetBeans BlueJ Edition

• Designed and developed by the BlueJ and NetBeans
  development teams, especially Michael Kölling,
  Ian Utting and Milos Kleint.
• Beta by May 15
• Ship late July?

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Demonstration