I've not used helio's textpad by myself, but if that helped u , then it should be good for others too,
eclipse and netbeans will make it easier to write/edit and debug the program. I'm not sure if helio's has the
facility to debug java program.
Oh yeah, if u really want to go with  java, learn atleast one framework, like struts, spring etc. This will give u the practice of professional programming.