...
[remote "origin"]
  ...
  fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

The definition of fetch was absent.

I think the students might have failed to check Configure Fetch when they added the remote, but I can’t be sure.

• Automatically add import statements to classes that live in faraway packages with Control-Shift-O or Command-Shift-O. That’s the letter O, not the number 0.
• Automatically reformat your code with Control-Shift-F or Command-Shift-F. You don’t need to have the code highlighted for this to work. However, this will only work when there are no egregious syntax errors.
• If you do have have egregious errors and still want to clean up your code’s indentation, first select your code with Control-A or Command-A. Then hit Control-Shift-I or Command-Shift-I.
• Comment or uncomment the line of code in which the cursor resides with Control-/ or Command-/. To apply this to multiple lines, select them first.
• Maximize (or unmaximize) the current editor with Control-M.
• For some reason, Eclipse doesn’t have a human-friendly keyboard shortcut to just run the current program. I add Control-R or Command-R for this purpose by visiting the Eclipse preferences, navigating to General / Keys, searching for and selecting the Run command, and typing the new shortcut in the Binding textbox.

Typing

I find the auto-closing of ", (, and { to cause more grief than benefit. This isn’t so much a style issue as a human-computer interaction issue. I make a few changes in the Eclipse preferences under Java / Editor / Typing.

Under automatically close, I uncheck the following:

• “Strings”
• (Parentheses), [square], and brackets
• {Braces}

Style

One customizes the style by visiting Eclipse’s preferences and selecting Java / Code Style / Formatter. Click Edit and rename the profile in order to make changes. Once in the editor, I make changes to the following sections.

Indentation

A lot of developers indent with four spaces. I do a lot of teaching and projecting, and I want to keep as much code on the screen as possible. Since I don’t like breaking lines, I reduce the tab size with the following settings:

• Tab Policy: Spaces only
• Indentation size: 2
• Tab size: 2

Line Wrapping

I don’t trust Eclipse to perform any line wrapping on my behalf. I select all options and set the following:

• Line wrapping policy: Do not wrap

Comments

When I use Control-/ or Command-/ to comment out some lines of code and then reformat, I lose the indentation of the commented code. I prevent this with the following setting:

• Format lines comments on first column: Unchecked