“IntelliJ IDEA” is an innovative Java IDE that has already picked up a number of prestigious industry awards in its short life – the first version of the software was launched as recently as January 2001. Now version 5 is here to tempt you to upgrade.

Figure 1: If you haven’t previously used “IntelliJ IDEA”, its “New Project” wizard will lead you through each of the steps involved in creating your first project. The wizard can help you to create two different types of projects, either a single module project as shown here, or alternatively, a more complex project consisting of multiple modules. As you progress your way through the steps, the wizard will also ask you to nominate the JDK that is to be used for compiling, debugging, running applications and standard JDK classes resolution.

Those awards reflect the attitude of the Java community around the world who not only like the product because of the technical benefits it provides, such as refactoring support and intelligent coding assistance, but also because it makes Java programming enjoyable.

In fact, JetBrains, the company that created “IntelliJ IDEA”, has adopted the phrase “Develop with pleasure!” as its motto. The initial idea – excuse the pun – that was responsible for sparking the creation of “IntelliJ IDEA” in the first place is interesting in itself.