[UPHPU] IDE

[Rusty Keele]

Trevyn Meyer <trevyn at esourcehome.com> wrote: What benefits do you get out of Zend?

Ive used Eclipse before but saw no benefit using an IDE for PHP.

For several years I used ConTEXT - a regular text editor that had only one PHP feature: keyword color highlighting.  I have since switched to PDT - a PHP Development    Tools framework for the Eclipse platform.  Although there are a few features I miss in ConTEXT, there are many other benefits of using this IDE to write PHP code:
1. The class outline is extremely helpful in finding attributes and methods in large projects with many classes.
2. The Intellisense-like help feature: when you type the name of a built in PHP function (or properly documented custom method) it will give you a brief description and list the variables (type, order, required or not)
3. The ability to refactor code saves a ton of time if you decide to change a method's signature.
4. The snippet library is convenient
5. The built-in PHP documentation is nicer than constantly visiting PHP's homepage.

  There are other things I like but these are the main features that made me switch and stay with the IDE.

  Here's the URL if you are interested: http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/ 

-Rusty


       
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