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Rodolfo Mendes
Rodolfo Mendes

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3 CLI Tools Every Java Developer Must Learn

1 - java

This is the essential tool that every serious Java developer must master. The java command is part of the Java SDK and invokes the JVM (Java Virtual Machine). This command is responsible for running Java programs compiled into Java bytecode. The java command is the heart of the Java platform. By practicing the java command, you can learn how to invoke a java program through a .class file or .jar file, how to setup the classpath for the JVM, how to setup the size of the heap space, how can you set different modes of execution of the garbage collector or even how can you configure the JVM to dump the memory to a file in the moment when it crashes. These skills make an enormous difference when running systems in production.

2 - javac

The javac command is also part of the Java SDK and it invokes the Java compiler, used to compile a set of Java source code files into a set of Java bytecode files.

3 - Maven

Building and compiling simple application using the javac command is quite simple. However, for bigger application the process of building and packaging an application is much more complex. For this task you can use Maven. Although Maven is not part of Java specification, the Java community has widely adopted Maven for dependency management, build and package Java applications.

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