Can't find a decent PHP development environment

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leenoble_uk
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Can't find a decent PHP development environment

Post by leenoble_uk »

Is there a decent PHP Development Environment out there anywhere, on any platform?

Ok, that sounds a bit curmudgeonly I admit, but the history behind this query is as follows.

I've been using BBEdit on the Mac for a long time as a simple plain text editor for coding my PHP scripts. Which was fine until I was introduced to Zend at my last job. I love all the little extras that Zend provides like function name completion and tooltips showing the parameters and best of all the fact that it can traverse a project and present all your own custom classes methods and functions for you as well.

The downside of Zend is that I find it buggy and annoying. I may be casting aspertions here but I blame it all on the fact it's coded in Java. I've never seen a Java app that wasn't unstable or slow or both. Java, as far as I'm concerned is evil.
In my new job we recently switched from Zend to Eclipse in the hope it would be a little less troublesome, although to be honest they are happy for us to use anything we like. I've been using Eclipse on my PC at work for the last month or so and have installed it on my Mac at home, but in all honesty I think it suffers from all the same issues as Zend does, and that all those issues are down to the fact it's built in Java. It behaves erratically, I lose code all over the place when the entire text of a document just seems to explode, and today I found a new bug where it won't let me undo, copy or paste anything so I can't even rescue the file I'm working on.

I want a better DE, one not built in Java. Basically I want BBEdit with code completion. Is there a decent PHPDE built in Cocoa for Mac somewhere? or anything for Windows that doesn't crash constantly?

All suggestions welcome.
Cheers
Lee
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

After using Eclipse PDT for a while I haven't noticed any instabilities or major bugs... That said there are a few PHP IDEs. Komodo IDE seems to get more mentions next to Zend Studio or Eclipse PDT...
leenoble_uk
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Post by leenoble_uk »

Thanks for the suggestion. I have installed Komodo and despite only cursory use and going through the preferences I have to say Hallelujah...so far. I'll give the 21-day trial a full workout but so far things seem hopeful, if only for the fact that java doesn't appear to be running on my PC.

I was in denial for a while about how bad Eclipse was since it wasn't Zend so I will need a bit of a cooling off period before I make my final assesment.

WRT Eclipse, I know people that have had no problems at all but I've suffered at the bare minimum rendering errors using both applications on multiple computers. Most of the time these can be resolved by restarting the program but they still interrupt workflow. I also find it unbelievable that if I double click a file on the desktop on Windows that an entire new instance of Eclipse is opened to view the file, rather than opening it in the one I'm already running. I've checked and Komodo isn't that stupid.

Thanks again, but more suggestions (if there are any) are welcome.
Lee
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pickle
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Post by pickle »

Dreamweaver has code completion but only with built-in functions - nothing custom written.
Coda is my new favourite, but doesn't have much code completion beyond cues for what parameters are needed for built-in functions.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
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feyd
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Post by feyd »

Have you read the editor thread(s) in General Discussion, ~leenoble_uk?
alex.barylski
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Post by alex.barylski »

I've used UltraEdit for anything outside of Visual Studio for years and years...

Not designed specifically for PHP but that's cool with me cause I use it for *everything*.

Stable as hell, powerful editing features AND cost effective.

Lightweight, loads fast, never hangs or crashes - seldomly anyways.
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

On windows I use editplus (for PHP) and e (for ruby)

In Ubuntu it's gedit FTW!

There's really no right answer - try a bunch, see what grabs you. I value lightweight text editors, others like heavy all-in-one IDEs. Find your style and don't look back.
leenoble_uk
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Post by leenoble_uk »

feyd wrote:Have you read the editor thread(s) in General Discussion, ~leenoble_uk?
I have to hold my hands up and confess that I didn't. In my defence though the problem I had was that of choosing a category in which to place my post, a problem which as far as I am aware has not been solved satisfactorily by anyone so far. Looking at the category descriptions I did not get the impression that that was the place to go. I did however perform a couple of searches for "alternatives to Zend" and the like and didn't get any results which seemed to be what I was looking for. Having scanned the first couple of pages of that category, nothing stands out so I would have resorted to a search in any case, it's just that my thought processes obviously did not align with anybody else's when it came to describing the problem at hand.

That said, thanks to all for the suggestions, I've got a few to work through now.
Cheers
Lee
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