You won’t believe this simple trick for using Emacs with Java!

Install JDEE! Ok, maybe that’s an overstatement. JDEE is far from simple, and it hasn’t been able to keep up very well since Java 1.4. However, thanks to Stephen Leake & folks, that might be starting to change. JDEE is now on Github, and it could definitely use your help.

Stephen has already been updating the code base for the recent Emacs versions, and other people have shown interest in this as well. There are already some productive discussions going on in the issues, and some of those items are things anyone could do. So if you like Emacs and you use Java, now this is a great chance to give something back.

However, if JDEE is not to your taste, don’t forget you have emacs-eclim and malabar-mode too. I’ve never used malabar-mode myself, but last time I had to deal with Java I gave eclim a try and it worked pretty well. You do need an eclipse server running in the background, but once you do it facilitates a good amount of features.