> In my original book for kids I used the Eclipse IDE, but for the new book I’ve chosen IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition, which is also available for free.<p>I think there is a fundamental problem with learning your language if your choice in IDE is a real factor in your learning.<p>> But no worries, kids won’t need to learn to write FXML manually - they just drag and drop UI controls on a canvas and Scene Builder generates the FXML.<p>Are you really teaching them programming at this point?<p>The provided example jumps wildly from really basic things (and inaccurate imagery: <a href="http://www.infoq.com/resource/articles/Teaching-Kids-Java/en/resources/2.png" rel="nofollow">http://www.infoq.com/resource/articles/Teaching-Kids-Java/en...</a>). Inheritance is glossed over even though it's probably one of the most important concepts in Java next to interfaces. I spot one paragraph trying to define six vocabulary words and in the very next paragraph you're talking about memory models.<p>You finish up the first excerpt with a really poor analogy about manufacturing computer games.<p>The second excerpt is almost entirely about things that aren't really programming.<p>I popped open the edits and in chapter 10 you actually tell kids to <i>go to StackOverflow</i> if they have problems. This is definitely a book about Java, but I see very little programming.