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Showing posts from November, 2008

Setting Path as an Environment Variable

Since 1995, when Microsoft replaced the old 16 bit Win3x with it's 32 bit operating systems, WinNT and Win9x onwards, Windows users have not really had to think about defining paths as environment variables, unless they have had the misfortune still to be running a 16 bit application from the command prompt. So when lessons in the Java Tutorial make references to setting path variables, I feel as if I have been time warped back 15 years. The subject of my last blog talks about setting the class path, and the "Hello World" for Windows lesson in the very first trail obliquely embeds instructions about path settings. And when I say oblique, I mean very oblique. First they set you up to hit an error. Then they provide a link to a troubleshooting page. And from there there is another link to instructions on writing a path to javac in the user environment settings. Considering the level of detail given on simpleton tasks, like saving a text file, or basic navigation