The Big PHP IDE Test | Hacker News Reader

The Big PHP IDE Test

smashingmagazine.com

14 pointsnreece7 comments

I have tried many of the PHP IDEs. I always find myself going back to zend studio 5.5. The eclipse based zend studio is slow and bloated and a downgraded from the standalone version. It's unfortunate they didnt continue the development.

I also played with Aptana on 4 or 5 occasions. I have followed the project for years and just cant make the switch. I always find little annoying bugs or inconsistency. Intellisense is still pretty new for PHP in Aptana, which was another deterrent.

PhpED also fell flat for me. If you are going to use an IDE go with Zend 5.5, otherwise VIM or notepad++ is your best bet.

Disclaimer: I work 7 feet away from agotterer.

I convinced him to try VIM a few months ago. He tried it for a week but didn't find it productive so switched back to zend. I blame myself for not fully explaining the productivity benefits of a properly configured VIM environment, so I'll try again:

Learning VIM requires a huge time commitment (weeks, even months before it is truly second nature). However, after 'getting it', there is less of a barrier between your brain and you code. I have code completion, good syntax highlighting, syntax verification, and keyboard shortcuts to do anything and everything to my text. My IDE is pre-installed on every sever I've ever seen.

I am highly recommending using VIM as an all purpose text editor, and specifically as a PHP IDE. Knowing it is a skill that be used whether you are an author, developer, sysadmin, or any occupation that requires typing.

I use both VIM and Eclipse PDT on a regular basis. Recently, while looking for a nice free Eclipse plugin that gives me vi key bindings (I haven't found one yet), I came across an interesting project: Eclim (http://eclim.sourceforge.net/)

While most Eclipse plugins bring vi functionality to Eclipse, Eclim goes the other way and brings Eclipse IDE functionality to VIM (using an Eclipse plugin that acts as a server-interface to a collection of VIM plugins). I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds interesting.

VIM is definitely top dog. I remember how excited I was when I learned how to use ":vsplit" and ":e ." -- I spent the next few years using it as my IDE. (Off topic, but equally as exciting was my recent discovery that the screen utility can do split-windows! Yes, I need to RTFM more often!)

+1 for vim, which I didn't mention.

I don't run X on *nix so when I am doing dev there I use vim, and have done so for a long long time

I have tried them all since I am back in PHP now because of our CMS. The new Zend Studio on Eclipse is just an embaresment, I almost bought it based on my experience years ago but it has really gone downhill. The best options in my opinion are (and you should try them all yourself):

* Eclipse with PDT, and the other plugins you need. Build your own better Zend studio (use Spket (www.spket.com) for JS and CSS support)

* Netbeans. A lot better than Zend Studio, more features and much more stable - a great IDE (www.netbeans.org)

* PHP for Visual Studio (http://www.jcxsoftware.com/) or an open source version which isn't as good but showing promise: http://www.codeplex.com/php4vs

Btw, if you are a PHP dev and you aren't using a decent IDE (with code completion and debugging, at the very least) you are missing out on a lot. For some reason a lot of php developers tend to be notepad + var_dump hackers

I started trying netbeans after reading this article, and I actually like. Besides the fact that JDK can be memory intensive to run, I think netbeans is pretty responsive. And I do like the Firefox style search.

I've also tried zend studio (trial), aptana, activestate and I didn't like any of them. I feel that it was hard to use and learn.

A pity they had to close the editing of that table due to vandalism - I was going to go fill in checkboxes for Komodo, which I use and love.

It's quick, covers most of the rows in their checklist, cross-platform, free. I take every opportunity to recommend it that I can.

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