You could use an IDE, as far as I know Sun One Studio
and Eclipse are free and work to a degree (at least)
thae latter, like the expensive IDE:s like JBuilder.
If you want a "DOS-feel-alike" IDE I can recommend
Kawa (KawaPro?) where you just compile the source
files directly instead of having to go through
creating a project (great for small apps like
applets), I don't believe that it's free though.

I wouldn't recommend Kawa to anybody. It isn't maintained by anybody,
and doesn't support stuff since 1.3.*. University of Queensland uses
Kawa to teach Java with, and it is a totaly horrible experiance for new
coders. They would be better off with UltraEdit. At least until they
change to teaching Scheme :(

If you want to buy a really nice IDE that isn't too expensive get
IntelliJ IDEA from Jetbrains. It is pretty much as fully featured as
most programmers can want, and it only costs US$100.

Netbeans (Sun One Studio) and Eclipse are ok. Netbeans is trying really
hard to be as good as either Eclipse and IntelliJ but not quite getting
there (at least in my opinion). Eclipse is (at least to me) kind of
weird compared to IntelliJ.

Of course this is totally biased ... I really like IntelliJ IDEA, I used
to use Eclipse and Netbeans but I didn't really like either. IDEA is
like programming with someone else to help you :)

> soln 1 : redirect the output to a file
>
> java your_error_prone_program > out.txt

I think error  messages don't go to file like that.

Ages ago I have used some method of redirecting errors  to a
different file. It was some prefix of ">". 1> e> &2> or
something I have forgotten.

Is there any such method?

> soln 2 : install cygwin so you can do a pipe
>
> java your_error_prone_program | more

what is cygwin? where?
ok. shall search.

> soln 4 : use eclipse
>

that is too huge a download.

> soln 5 : catch runtime  exceptions ;)

only if I know where they are occurring.

> $ javac MyFaultyProgram > error_log

what about

d:\mydir> javac mtfaultyprogram

>>how to solve this problem.
>
>
> Control your errors  better.

of course. but here even 99.99% control is not good enough

soln 1 : redirect the output to a file

java your_error_prone_program > out.txt

soln 2 : install cygwin so you can do a pipe

java your_error_prone_program | more

soln 3 : switch to linux

soln 4 : use eclipse

soln 5 : catch runtime  exceptions ;)

You could also try using Log4j for your errors  and stop using System.out. It
might not be what you're looking for but it's faster than command line  printing
and has many features. Take a look at http://logging.apache.org/

> I am not able to the the first line  of error  message which
> would have given me the line no. where the exception  really
> occurred.

$ javac MyFaultyProgram > error_log


> how to solve this problem.

Control your errors  better.

If you are using windows command prompt windows, then you can increase
the buffer size (height) of the window. You can do this as follows.
Bring focus to the cmd, press alt+'space bar', Select the properties
and then increase the screen buffer height to whatever you like.