Searching for the Perfect IDE Experience
Right now, and the last 4 years really, I use EditPlus for all my PHP development but from time to time I dip my toes in the IDE waters to see if I can make a switch for something a little more… helpful. I’ve always had a love/hate thing going on with IDEs for PHP; I’ve always been intrigued by the bells and whistles of IDEs but the memory usage has always been a sore spot I can’t get past. Needless to say, I invariably end up going back to EditPlus.
evans-ide-2006
When I first started with PHP I used DreamWeaver 4 as my IDE tool of choice for a while, eventually switching to newer versions of DreamWeaver as they came out. Obviously, I was a pretty crappy PHP developer at the time; there was no thought to process or cleanliness and DreamWeaver helped make sure I didn’t.
Like most serious programmers do, I eventually found DreamWeaver getting in the way more than helping so I went on a bender, switching IDEs about every few months (and sometimes every week).
I’ve worked locally on a Linux server with Joe, Pico and Vim and worked with Zend Studio, Komodo, PHP Designer, PHP Edit but I always found the experience, across the board, to be lacking and/or painful. Linux text editors are fine and all but they just work too differently than I’m used to and the learning curve was just too high. The Windows IDEs above all had some nice features but their memory usage was always just abysmal.
The memory usage is the big one for me. There’s nothing worse than trying to get something done and have your computer become unresponsive. It just fucking sucks man.
Being a web developer I can have quite a few programs open at a time and all of them are HUGE memory hogs. Photoshop (sometimes with 100MB+ PSD files open), CuteFTP, Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Outlook and EditPlus (my PHP editor of choice). On top of that I’m running Windows Vista which sucks up 750MB of RAM on a laptop with only 2GB of RAM.
With no programs running, my computer is using 850-875MB of RAM.
Computer Baseline
With all the above programs running I’m using around 1.75 to 1.90GB of RAM.
Computer Loaded
This leaves very little for anything else so EditPlus, with it’s 2MB of RAM requirement, looks extremely appealing. Not to gush too much about EditPlus but out of the box it’s got syntax highlighting, FTP (and SFTP) remote connectivity, extensibibility and it’s very, very, fast and efficient.
The problem is that I’m doing more than php development now. I’ve spoken a little about my interest in Blackberry development and Java before and lately I’ve been a little frustrated with switching from EditPlus to Eclipse to Blackberry JDE (the Blackberry extension for Eclipse is outdated and doesn’t work with Eclipse 3.5 so I use the JDE instead).
After working with Eclipse for a couple weeks I’ve grown pretty fond of it. For Java development it works great because I don’t need any of the web development tools I need for building a website so the 250MB of memory it requires is a drop in the bucket. Even taking into account the Blackberry development having to be done in the Blackberry JDE Eclipse is still a great choice for Java development.
But for web development, at the moment, I’m not so sure. With the exception of the memory usage the biggest issue is that I’m not sure Eclipse can connect to a remote server for php development; I’m still pretty new to Eclipse so I could be wrong. Without the ability to connect to a remote server this really hampers my ability to work on hosted sites.
Still, I’m going to be using Eclipse for PHP development for 1 month just to see if it’s worth it. I know I’m going to have to change some of my process but, hopefully, the benefits of the IDE will outweigh any downside.
We’ll see…
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You really should give those “Linux text editors” another try. The learning curve is huge, but if you ever make it over the hump you’ll never go back.
For example, think of a hunt and pecker saying how touch typing is too hard and just not what he’s used to. Have you ever heard of a touch typist going back to the hunt and peck method after they learned to touch type? Of course not. That’s because a fair comparison is impossible until the after the hunt and pecker actually learns to touch type. Likewise, you cannot compare two editing methods without learning both. If you only know one, of course the other will seem weird.
Please, do yourself a big favor and learn Vim thoroughly. You won’t regret it.
Hi Jim,
It’s not that I don’t know how to use them; I have to use them all the time when working on a Linux box. It’s just that using them, as a full time php development IDE, isn’t really that productive for me.
Hmmm… Looking over the paragraph in question it seems I should have been clearer on this point. Hopefully, the below will clear things up a little.
I mentioned Vim and Emacs because I’ve worked with some people who swear by one or the other; a couple even looked pretty productive using both and I’ve given it a try on a couple different occasions. I just don’t think it added enough to my productivity to make it worth while for my needs.
Here’s my ideal IDE (in a completely naive outline):
Works on Windows and can connect to remote servers
Full class and function reference/auto-complete (including project code)
Use as little RAM as possible (32MB at MOST would be excellent).
Syntax highlighting.
Pluggable for integration with other languages
That’s it. That’s all I want.
Honestly, if EditPlus had the whole auto-complete / code reference thing and the pluggable setup (and RIM setup a Blackberry plugin for it) I’d be set. But since that’s obviously never going to happen I have to move away from a “simple” text editor into something a little more robust.
Fair enough. It’s just as a constant VIM user, I can’t even imagine doing normal work with another editor. I’d sooner want to run VIM with one hand behind my back, than use a normal text editor.
With plug-ins, VIM also fits all your above needs. Normal RAM usage for me, on Windows, with a good sized project (50 files open) is around 5 MB.
Something still makes me think that your idea of learning VIM is type ‘i’ to enter text, hit ESC when done. If you’re using VIM and your hands leave the home row (for mouse, arrow keys, page up, etc) then you’re doing it wrong. It’s so powerful because you do everything from the home row.
Anyway, if you really have learned it thoroughly, I’ve underestimated you and I apologize. But I just can’t imagine anyone knowing of all that power and then going back…
Nope, you didn’t underestimate me at all (sigh… reality).
You’re absolutely dead on there Jim; I do look at VIM as typing ‘i’ and escape to work. I definitely don’t know it as well as most people. I know the mechanics but I have zero finesse with it…
I have to admit you’ve piqued my interest in VIM; I didn’t even know it was available on Windows. I’m going to check it out anew.
Thanks for the advice.
While they’ve recently dropped their own PHP plug-in (in order to contribute to the PDT project), a combination of the Aptana Studio (www.aptana.org) plugin for Eclipse and the PDT project, which you can install from the Aptana interface once it’s loaded should get you what you need.
Aptana has excellent S/FTP connections for remote servers. PDT, while bloated, covers the auto-completion, syntax coloring, and function/ref. Aptana and PDT are built on Eclipse, so you can use it alongside your Java/Crackberry stuff.
The downside is that, like Eclipse, it’s a little more memory intensive. Still might be worth a look.
Hi Craig,
Thanks for the info; I really come to enjoy Eclipse. I’d tried a stanalone plugin for that does the SFTP and FTP stuff but it’s nice to hear about something a little more substantive.
Eric
You may want to consider IntelliJ IDEA. It’s commercial, but it’s worth every penny. It’s Java support is the best in the industry, and it has strong support for HTML/Javascript/CSS including refactorings. PHP support is there too:
http://www.jetbrains.com/idea/features/php_editor.html
Note that Jetbrains also have a new IDE in development that is targeted specifically at web dev, including PHP. You can download an early access preview from here:
http://www.jetbrains.net/confluence/display/WI/Web+IDE+EAP
http://blogs.jetbrains.com/webide/
Enjoy
I was the same way with Dreamweaver 4 all the way until Dreamweaver CS something, then changed to some other IDE I heard was ok but I just did not like it. I finally settled with notepad++ on a Windows server environment and it was just perfect… but as everything it had it’s ups and downs. The reason I can’t get away from Notepad++ is that I got very used to the color syntax I set up for it since I love programming with dark themes (my eyes get less tired). Now I changed into Ubuntu (Karmic Koala) for undisclosed reasons ( windows blew up ) and I’m still using Notepad++ under wine, but it’s kind of slow at some points, yet I cannot find another IDE that makes me feel at home. I also tried using gPHPEdit ( which has a nice jump-to-another-function sidebar helper).
Hi Jon,
I had the same issue when trying to move away from Editplus; I was sooooo used to the syntax highlighting in Editplus that Eclipse was tough to scan. Thankfully, you can change the syntax highlighting in Eclipse by going to the menu Window->Preferences.
From there, expand PHP->Editor->Syntax Coloring in the left tree menu.
You can’t change all the colors but most can be. Not perfect but it helped make the transition easier for me.
Eric
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I use Eclipse PDT + Aptana, and it is amazing. I get full code completion, awesome syntax highlighting, FTP/SFTP, SVN (via Subversive), SSH via (Target Management), and Trac (via Mylyn) all in one package.
If you’re looking for standalone remote file access, try the RSE (Remote System Explorer) package. I believe that will also do what you need.
On windows many years ago I used to use Homesite by Allaire < Macromedia < Adobe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromedia_HomeSite
It was very good from memory, but was recently discontinued, but hey I bet it still works.
I know they integrated many features into Dreamweaver which I tried but it was way to bloated. Now I'm on a mac with Textmate which is OK too.
You might want to give Netbeans a try. I have tried just about every IDE out there and once Netbeans came out with PHP support I tried it. I find it runs much better than eclipse and has plugins for just about every language I would want to write in.
Neatbeans PHP is far better than Eclipse PHP. Eclipse PHP is good but Nerbeans is way more efficent and advanced for PHP development.
Searching for the Perfect IDE Experience | Made of Everything You’re Not | Eric Lamb…
Right now, and the last 4 years really, I use EditPlus for all my PHP development but from time to time I dip my toes in the IDE waters to see if I can make a switch for something a little more… helpful. I’ve always had a love/hate thing going on with …
for php dev i currently use eclipse at work, netbeans at home for bigger projects (because of the code completion) and for quick hacks i use editplus. i tried to switch to notepad++ several times, but it just doesn’t feel right.
i like netbeans more than eclipse, but i can’t really say why. maybe because it feels slimmer and faster.
I play around with IDEs also, and am currently experimenting with Programmer’s Notepad.
http://www.pnotepad.org/
It has a very small footprint and seems to be flexible.
What about code snippets? I bought a program named treepadfile (http://www.treepad.com/) for this. But of course, no syntax coloring as it is mainly for text items.
Thanks for the article.
I’d also suggest Netbeans. It doesn’t have everything but I’ve certainly found the best out of all the IDEs including the expensive ZendStudio. Netbeans PHP is free crossplatform and fast.
You have written exactly my thoughts down !
I also have stuck with editplus with a similar ammount of attempts at the whole range of ides.
The only one i do quite like at the moment is the Jetbrains Webide one – which is still in beta but does look promising……
mind you i love editplus – excellent editor !