what does it means by “recompile source code?” in java

Question

I have read following:

"Active mq requires JRE or JDk (a JDK is required if you plan to recompile source code)"

My question is, what does it means by "recompile source code?"

Answer 1

It means that if you want to download the source code yourself and compile it yourself, you need the JDK. The JRE (Java Runtime Environment) can run Java code, but to compile Java code you need the JDK (Java Development Kit).

Answer 2

Compiling Java source code is the act of turning Java code as written by programmers into Java Byte Code by the JVM which can then be run by the JRE on any machine.

To "re-compile" means to restart this process. For us as programmers working in an IDE it means that we just save the newly changed code and press the compile icon.