Writing JDBC Applications with MySQL -Preliminary Requirements

To use Java applications with MySQL, you may need to install some additional software:

• If you want to compile and run Java programs, you'll need a Java compiler (such as javac or jikes) and a runtime environment. If these are not already installed on your system, you can get them by obtaining a Java Software Development Kit (SDK) from java.sun.com.
  
• If you want only to run precompiled applications, no compiler is necessary, but you'll still need a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). This too may be obtained from java.sun.com.
  

This article assumes that you'll write and compile your own programs, and thus that you have a Java SDK installed. Once you compile a Java program, however, you can deploy it to other machines, even ones that have only a runtime environment. This works even in heterogenous installations, because Java is platform-independent. Applications compiled on one platform can be expected to work on other platforms. For example, you can develop on a Linux box and deploy on Windows.