DrHJ – a lightweight pedagogic IDE for Habanero Java
9th International Conference on the Principles and Practice of Programming in Java (PPPJ 2011)
The Java language and runtime environment has had a profound worldwide impact on computer software since its introduction nearly two decades ago. It has enabled the creation of a rich ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, and tools that promises to deliver significant value for many years to come. Consequently, a wide range of Interactive Development Environments (IDEs) have emerged to increase the productivity of Java programmers. They vary in functionality based on the expertise level assumed for their target user base. The Eclipse Java Development Tools (JDT) project offers a rich set of power tools for experienced programmers, but can be harder for novice programmers to set up and use. In contrast, IDEs such as DrJava and BlueJ have been developed primarily for use in introductory programming courses.
In this tool demonstration paper, we summarize the DrHJ tool which will be demonstrated at the conference. In anticipation of the need for introducing parallelism earlier in the Computer Science curriculum, DrHJ extends DrJava with support for the pedagogic Habanero Java (HJ) parallel programming language that was derived from the earlier Java-based definition of the X10 language. DrHJ builds on our past experiences at Rice with developing the DrJava IDE and the HJ language. DrJava is used by many universities world-wide, and has been downloaded over 1.1 million times since its inception in 2002.
