[The_Programmer-]

Well I'm taking AP Computer Science and I have to learn Java AGAIN. I have literally taken 3 classes on it. I have no doubt that I will pass but they said to use BlueJ. I'm an Eclipse fan so Eclipse is all I'll use. Is there something special that BlueJ can do that Eclipse can't?

[modi123_1]

Ah.. yeah.. there's a gulf of difference. I would suggest you peek at their website and then accept you will be using BlueJ this semester/year.

http://www.bluej.org/about/what.html

[Ryano121]

In a nutshell no. Bluej is designed to be a learning tool for people who have next to no programming experience at all. It is therefore built to be one. It doesn't have any fancy features, it makes learning the basics simpler. For anyone who isn't completely new, then you will think it's a big step back from a fully fledged IDE like Eclipse.

Perhaps you can ask to use Eclipse instead if you have already done Java before.

[Utael]

Actually id suggest using bluej, it will get any reliance on an IDE out.and help you refresh working in a basic text editor. While using an IDE is great you can get lax at building from the ground up.

[macosxnerd101]

Is there some technical reason why you have to use BlueJ, like a plugin to submit assignments? That's how things work at the intro class at my college. In the second semester Data Structures I class, there is a plugin for Eclipse. BlueJ may be recommended and the only IDE supported. You can however, just write your code in Eclipse and make sure what you're turning in runs in BlueJ.

[gangrelguy]

BlueJ is an "Objects First" oriented 'IDE' (I use that term simply because it's what you code in, but no helper popups or anything) and ties into the book that is likely being used in the class. I took the first level Java class that used that book last semester and found that even though I knew Java well enough for the following class (the teacher reminded me of this multiple times) that I found I was learning some small things in every class still. I'm a big eclipse fan myself but the teacher insisted on homework turnins to be in a form that only BlueJ would do. I even used BlueJ to implement GUI versions of the assignments since the assignments took so little time to actually do. It was a different perspective than I was used to and I can say that I appreciated it for that alone.