recommendations for editor for Java programming?

[ryancw]

My son, a junior in high school, will be taking "Introduction to Programming" this fall. The class will be programming in Java. Any suggestions for editors or integrated development environments that make Java coding easy? I'm looking for syntax highlighting, automatic indenting, code folding, an easy command/key/menu item for compiling, that sort of thing.

Cross-platform compatibility would be a big plus, since he will be working on Windows in school and probably on our Libranet 3.1 machine at home.

I know nothing of Java, but I work a lot with editors n LaTeX, R, Stata, and I'm getting my feet wet with perl.

I've worked with a variety of editors:

Windows: TextPad, CrimsonEditor, NoteTab, TinnR, Xemacs

Linux: emacs, geany, gedit, kate, leafpad, and a few others.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[danieldk]

Although it is a complete development environment, Eclipse has the best Java editor I have seen by far. It does syntax highlighting, folding, code completion, etc. Works on Linux, Windows, and other platforms.