&gt; Eclipse and dependencies handling are hard problems. It works if everything is set up perfectly, but Eclipse is super brittle<p>I agree.  If that is the problem, I will happily walk the student through the setup--even at any point in the semester.  If a computer craps out, <i>I</i> will help the student recover from the repository--I don&#x27;t expect them to be able to do that.  It does also happen, rarely, that I have to actually help a student set up their computer because they have some weird issue.  I do not consider failing at setting up your environment to be a failure of the class.  Schedule some time with me and we&#x27;ll go through it together.<p><i>HOWEVER</i>, this is generally not the problem, oddly.  They get that set up pretty much fine.<p>The first problem is: System.out.println(&quot;Hello, World!&quot;);<p>I <i>WARN</i> people over and over.  I am automated testing this.  Computer output must be <i>EXACT</i>.  The comma, space, capitalization, and exclamation point <i>ARE NOT OPTIONAL</i>.  Debugging is about noticing details, and if you can&#x27;t match this, you&#x27;re not going to find the actually subtle bugs later in your own code.  Really, this is the only functional line in the program--I&#x27;m not joking about this.<p>The second problem is: &quot;But I didn&#x27;t know I could check this before the assignment date.&quot;  Um, I have a website set up for the class--did you check it for the past two weeks that it has been running?  I have pointed this page out and put it on screen at both beginning and end of class for the past 4 lectures.  The anonymized login ID&#x27;s have a Red X for a failure and a Green + for success.  I also have the intensity modulated properly so that those who are red&#x2F;green color blind are able to tell as well.<p>I have just learned that I&#x27;m going to have to politely smile at all the excuses and whining after that first assignment and tell people repeatedly that I&#x27;m not budging on this.  After the first couple of students, the rest get the message.