Installing the Android SDK and Prerequisites

Successfully installing the Android SDK requires two other software systems that are
not part of the Android SDK: the Java Development Kit (JDK) and the Eclipse integrated
development environment (IDE). These two systems are not delivered as part of the
Android SDK because you may be using them for purposes outside of Android software
development, or because they may already be installed on your system, and redundant
installations of these systems can cause version clashes.

The Android SDK is compatible with a range of recent releases of the JDK and the
Eclipse IDE. Installing the current release of each of these tools will usually be the right
choice. The exact requirements are specified on the System Requirements page of the
Android Developers site: http://developer.android.com/sdk/requirements.html.
One can use IDEs other than Eclipse in Android software development, and information
on using other IDEs is provided in the Android documentation at http://developer
.android.com/guide/developing/other-ide.html. We chose Eclipse as the IDE covered in
this book because Eclipse supports the greatest number of Android SDK tools and other
plug-ins, and Eclipse is the most widely used Java IDE, but IntelliJ IDEA is an alternative
many Java coders prefer.