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h1. Getting Started

This guide will give you a short briefing of how to get your development environment up and running within a few minutes.

h2. Basic Setup

For the basic setup of your development environment you need to obtain the following tools and programmes:

* The "Java Development Kit":http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html (JDK) version 6 or higher

* A text editor or an IDE

* "Maven":http://maven.apache.org/

* "Git":http://git-scm.com/

Since the setup process of the development environment is dependent on the operating system used, you will find the instructions for different systems (Windows, OS X and Linux) below.

h3. Windows

# Download and install the "Java Development Kit":http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Version 6 of the JDK is sufficient, but we strongly recommend to use the most recent version.

# Get an editor or an IDE of your choice and install it

Good IDEs for Java development are "NetBeans":http://www.netbeans.org/ and "Eclipse":http://www.eclipse.org/. If you prefer a pure text editor, "Notepad++":http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ is worth trying.

# Download and install "Maven":http://maven.apache.org/

# Download "Git":http://git-scm.com/.

There are different options available in order to use Git on Windows:

* "Git Extensions":https://code.google.com/p/gitextensions/

Git Extensions is a graphical user interface for Git, that comes with Windows Explorer integration. It is based on "MSysGit":https://code.google.com/p/msysgit/. Our recommendation for Windows users.

* "TortoiseGit":https://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/

TortoiseGit is a port of TortoiseSVN. For those familiar with TortoiseSVN, TortoiseGit is worth trying. It requires "MSysGit":https://code.google.com/p/msysgit/.

* "MSysGit":https://code.google.com/p/msysgit/

Git on the command line.

h3. OS X

*TODO*

h3. Linux

*TODO*

h2. Configuration

*TODO*

h2. Further Reading

*TODO*