Agreed.  MASON works fine as a jar file.  You can make your apps anywhere you like.  That's how I'd teach a class: a single MASON jar file and eclipse.

The only [minor] issue is if you want to add them to the default list of apps in the Console -- to do this you just modify the "simulation.classes" file and rebuild the jar.

> On Mar 21, 2018, at 11:30 AM, Eric 'Siggy' Scott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> To second Robert's point, if the goal is simply to use MASON, then I don't foresee any complication with having students download the MASON jar and use it as a pre-compiled external library with whatever IDE you/they prefer.
> 
> This approach would only cause problems for people who prefer to create their models right inside the "apps/" directory of the MASON source tree—but that always struck me as a strange practice anyway (since it means that every client application becomes an extension of MASON itself).  The tutorial in the MASON manual only requires that MASON can be found in your classpath.
> 
> Siggy
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 10:18 AM, Robert Zupko <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> My concern is that you would run into similar problems with the other Java IDEs that are out there. Ideally they shoudln't need to get into the implementation of MASON very much if at all though so that is a point to keep in mind.
> 
> On Wed, Mar 21, 2018 at 10:11 AM, Peter Gacs <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am not wedded to Eclipse, I started with it even later than with Mason.  But my hope is to create an undergraduate simulation course based on Mason, and I don't think I can give it to them without a debugging environment.  Eclipse seems the logical choice.
> 
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> 
> -- 
> 
> Ph.D student in Computer Science, George Mason University
> Web Director, Journal of Mason Graduate Research
> http://mason.gmu.edu/~escott8/