What IDE are you using?

[typingcat]

First of all, I'm an Asian and I need to input Japanese, Korean and so
on. I've tried many PHP IDEs today, but almost non of them supported
Unicode (UTF-8) file.

I've found that the only Unicode support IDEs are DreamWeaver 8 and
Zend PHP Studio.

DreamWeaver provides full support for Unicode. However, DreamWeaver is
a web editor rather than a PHP IDE. It only supports basic IntelliSense
(or code completion) and doesn't have anything like a class view.

Zend PHP Studio supports Unicode but have many problems. It couldn't
display Korean when I set a Japanese font for the editor, and couldn't
display Japanese when I set a Korean font for the editor. The most
obvious problem is it's too slow. It provides really good support for
coding like class view, debugging and advanced IntelliSense, but it's
too slow for my PC.

I think you're PHP professinals. What do you use for PHP development?
I'd like to hear from you. Thanks.

[Ramon]

LOL, oh please, the purpose of my post was not to proove that mine is
bigger then yours and vice verser. But it is evident from your
statements, that your views are very limited, and that all you are
trying to do is proove how great you are that you can code PHP in a text
editor. Look, congratulations , you've prooven it.

Furthermore you are not providing any real life examples to your
argument. Why is the IDE slow and limiting? You also completely ignored
my argument on run time debugging, simple walking over your inline
print_r()'s.

I've been in the industry for over 10 years, but that is not the point
and to be honest, every company/university I walked into. Was using
TextPad, but after I showed them how to use Zend non of them went back
to a simple Text editor. It improves productivity by at least 75%.

Yet, you argument states, and I quote:

"Interestin gly enough, it was the most experienced programmers with
their text editors who invariably had the highest production and fewest
errors."

That statement alone in my opionion reinforces the fact that you haven't
even taken the time to try to develop something in Zend. Because if you
put 2 identical developers next to each other, one with Zend the other
with TextPad, and give them the same task. The one with Zend is going to
be sipping margaritas in the Bahamas, by the time your *old school* guys
reaches the unit testing phase.

There is a reason that people who founded / were strongly involved in
the development of PHP it self started Zend - the company. There is a
reason that they charge quete a large sum for their software. Because
they know its good, they know that people will earn more money using it
then they will pay for it.

And honestly I hate to get personal, and compare each other's e-penises.
But I'm sure your next reply will lack any indepth thought or industry
insight. It will simply say, I've worked on blah blah, and the person
with TextPad was so much quicker, because the memory load on his machine
was alot lower, due to TextPad using so few resources... blah blah.

Ahh... don't make me laught.

Please don't tell me what I have or have not worked on. I have been on
a couple of very large PHP projects, probably much larger than anything
you've been on (50+ programmers, several hundred K LOC).
No, it's NOT hard to determine what other departments have done. It's
called DOCUMENTATION.

Thats only the start, IDEs (Zend) in this case provide me with several
other features:

1) Debugger, this is a must, being able to view objects / array /
variables run time, cuts down development time by at least 50%
(probably more). Instead of having to print_r() every second line to
find out whats going on.

2) Integratted PHPDoc, those of you who came out with guns blazing
saying TextPad is all I need ra.. ra.. ra.. May not have the use for
it, but my team and I certainly do.

Integrated CVS, FTP, SFTP, Database browser, Table Browser (for most
db's including oracle 10g), Code analyser, profiler, watches,
breakpoints, projects, auto indentatio.

Thats just a few of the features that come to mind, yes Zend support
is really terrible... I mean really bad. But as far as large scale PHP
development goes you can't go past it. Yes, I understand that people
strugle with change, but you are prooving nothing to me saying that
you can do it all with TextPad. I used to be in the same shoes, sure
you can do it with TextPad, its only going to take you alot more time.

Sure, Zend has some advantages. Some or the people on the projects used
it. Others didn't.

I don't object to change. I tried Zend. The debugger is great. But
the IDE was too slow and limiting.

I'm not saying Zend or other IDE's are bad. They aren't. But what
works for one person does not work for every person. I work much faster
with a text editor than when using Zend. And most of our most
experienced programmers found the same. The newer programmers were more
likely to use Zend or some other IDE.

Interestingly enough, it was the most experienced programmers with their
text editors who invariably had the highest production and fewest errors.

[Jerry Stuckle]

Ramon wrote:

LOL, oh please, the purpose of my post was not to proove that mine is
bigger then yours and vice verser. But it is evident from your
statements, that your views are very limited, and that all you are
trying to do is proove how great you are that you can code PHP in a text
editor. Look, congratulations , you've prooven it.

This is the farthest from the truth I've ever heard. I was responding
to your statement:

"And anyone that stated in this thread that they don't need anything
more then textpad, obviously have not worked on a large scale PHP
project...."

This statement is completely asinine. You have NO idea what projects I
or most other people on this newsgroup have worked on.
Furthermore you are not providing any real life examples to your
argument. Why is the IDE slow and limiting? You also completely ignored
my argument on run time debugging, simple walking over your inline
print_r()'s.

No, I don't have to. It works for me.

However - I'm typically thinking several characters or words ahead of
what I'm writing. And auto-completion, popup assists, etc. are a huge
distraction to me. Amongst other things.

Debugging is nice, I do admit. But I don't need to WRITE my code in an
IDE to be able to DEBUG it. I typically get along fine with echo,
print_r, etc. But I know how to use a debugger when I need it.
I've been in the industry for over 10 years, but that is not the point
and to be honest, every company/university I walked into. Was using
TextPad, but after I showed them how to use Zend non of them went back
to a simple Text editor. It improves productivity by at least 75%.

Damn - another newcomer. I've got almost 30 years of seniority on you.

And yes, it does improve productivity of programmers who don't know what
they're doing, don't understand the language and/or don't want to
remember the functions. I find it quite easy to remember function names
and parms - and when I do need to look something up, the online help is
a click away.

Yet, you argument states, and I quote:

"Interestin gly enough, it was the most experienced programmers with
their text editors who invariably had the highest production and fewest
errors."

That statement alone in my opionion reinforces the fact that you haven't
even taken the time to try to develop something in Zend. Because if you
put 2 identical developers next to each other, one with Zend the other
with TextPad, and give them the same task. The one with Zend is going to
be sipping margaritas in the Bahamas, by the time your *old school* guys
reaches the unit testing phase.

To repeat - I HAVE used Zend and other IDE's. And I'll take you on ANY
DAY. You don't have a leg to stand on with your limited experience.

There is a reason that people who founded / were strongly involved in
the development of PHP it self started Zend - the company. There is a
reason that they charge quete a large sum for their software. Because
they know its good, they know that people will earn more money using it
then they will pay for it.

Yep, it's good for the newbie and those who don't want to bother to
learn the language, functions, etc.
And honestly I hate to get personal, and compare each other's e-penises.
But I'm sure your next reply will lack any indepth thought or industry
insight. It will simply say, I've worked on blah blah, and the person
with TextPad was so much quicker, because the memory load on his machine
was alot lower, due to TextPad using so few resources... blah blah.

Yep, just like any newbie. Think they know everything.

My point is - NO IDE IS RIGHT FOR EVERYONE! You're trying to make EVERY
PROGRAMMER fit into the same mold. WE DON'T!
Ahh... don't make me laught.

Why not? Your post was the biggest laugh I had all day.

And don't top post.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[jussij]

> When you have multiple people if not teams working on the

same project, its a bloody pain in the ass to have to look
up what some tool, in some other department called a fanction
and what parameters it takes.

One option is to use the ctags utility to create a tags database,
allowing searches like this to be done in a matter of seconds and
many text editors have the ability to search tag files.

A second option would be to integrate the doxygen documentation
utility into some sort of nightly build process. This would
create for you a fully indexable list of the functions and
variables that make up your project.

This list could be navigated using nothing but a standard web
browser, but you could also convert the HTML into something
like a HtmlHelp file. That then makes it possible to search
you index from within your favourite text editors.

Zeus integrates to both of these tools and the searching is
hardly painful. I would suggest that in some cases it might
even be faster than your IDE ;)

Jussi Jumppanen
Author: Zeus for Windows IDE
http://www.zeusedit.com

[Jerry Stuckle]

Ramon wrote:

Oh, and one other thing. I've been training programmers longer than
you've been a programmer. My clients have included a fair percentage of
the Fortune 500 companies, as well as smaller companies.

And I repeat - IDE'S ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE!

I've seen vi programmers outperform ANYTHING someone using TextPad or
ANY other Windows programs - including IDE's - does. And no, I'm not
that good. But these guys (and gals) are.

--
=============== ===
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attgl obal.net
=============== ===

[Andrew DeFaria]

Oli Filth wrote:

Andrew DeFaria said the following on 24/10/2005 22:15:

Oli Filth wrote:

True, but OTOH, code completion makes people lazy. Text editors
force you to remember functions, which I think is a benefit.

Are you serious?? ;)

Where's the benefit in having to remember the exact syntax for
hundreds/thousands of functions?
Of what benefit is there to be using functions that you don't know
intimately?!?

Sure, you should know what they do and what you're trying to achieve
by using them, but knowing whether it's xml_parser_crea te() or
XmlParserCreate () or xmlParserCreate () (or equally, whether it's
strstr($needle, $haystack) or strstr($haystac k, $needle)) is nothing
but an exercise in trivia.

No, to me it's a sign that you don't know the function well enough...
Of course, you can flick to the online manual and find out, but that
must be at least 20 times slower (not to mention disruptive to the
coding "flow") than simply typing the first few letters into an IDE
and then pressing Tab for auto-complete (or the equivalent).

Perhaps - but it ain't worth losing all of the functionality and
flexibility of XEmacs - at least not to me...

Perhaps it's clearest benefit is the realization that any such
library that has hundreds/thousands of functions is way to complex to
be using!

Unfortunately, most APIs are necessarily complex...

I would agree! Except, of course, for the usage of the word
"necessaril y". For that word I would substitute the word "unnecessarily" .

You might as well be programming in assembler if you like it raw! :)

Assembler would be quicker! Running that is. And yes some people
still program in assembler. http://grc.com/smgassembly.htm

Yup, I still do too ;) But only for embedded stuff.

Well if you read the page you would see he write *all* of his
applications in assembly...

[Andrew DeFaria]

Oli Filth wrote:

Justin Koivisto said the following on 24/10/2005 22:54:

Oli Filth wrote:

Janwillem Borleffs said the following on 23/10/2005 17:06:

True, but OTOH, code completion makes people lazy. Text editors
force you to remember functions, which I think is a benefit.

Are you serious?? ;)

Where's the benefit in having to remember the exact syntax for
hundreds/thousands of functions?

Sure all the code completion and such is nice and *might* save you
time when you are using functions that aren't part of your daily
routine, but if you have only ever used IDEs and not memorized
function names, syntax and return cases, where would you be when you
notice that something is very bad on your site and you don't have
access to your computer (or any computer) with the IDE installed? I
find that having had to memorize most of the common functions and
syntax has helped me tremendously for speed as well as being able to
handle a crisis if needed.

I see your point, but that only applies for interpreted/script-based
languages like PHP, VBScript, etc. For anything that requires a
compiler (e.g. C), the point is moot...

Sorry but that does not compute! Why is the presence of a compiler
dictate the need for an IDE? Both the interpreted and compiled based
languages can suffer from the same problem mentioned above.

You might as well be programming in assembler if you like it raw! :)

That's a stretch... it may be a pain for some, but anyone who started
programming C with vi knows what it is like. Assembler isn't even a
comparison to these top-level languages - especially when you're
talking perl and/or php where most of the function names document the
code by themselves...

Yup, I was taking it to the logical extreme, I know! My point was
along the lines of "why forego modern technology that's there to make
your life easier?".

The same reason why teenagers always use calculators and have been
losing the ability to compute problems, do arithmetic without a
calculator and to, by extension, think logically. Just because there's a
modern do hickey for something doesn't mean that you can nor should give
up understanding of what's going on under the hood and get your hands
dirty every now and then. And as is often the case, the true
professionals, the ones who are often better or the best, do things the
old fashioned way. Why is that? And who do you want to be?

[Ramon]

true what they say about old dogs not being able to learn new tricks, I
see you have gottn quete worked up over ths issue, ok... IDEs are not
for everyone. Keep training people to use TextPad and vi.

Infact you can do anything you like, talking to you is like talking to a
brick wall, an old brick wall. To be honest I got better things to do.

Infact this is exactly the same as when I asked about shared memory
allocation I think you were also the first fag to jump in and proove
that you know everything about anything. And that your 50 years
experience gives you an edge some how. IT&T is moving way to quick for
someone to go and claim just because they written code in assembler or
something else prehistoric that they know better.

And for your argument that you are training people for so many years, I
don't give a flying shit who you train. Not all my lecture's were good.
And perhaps you are quete average as well. After all marketing does have
a large roll in *selling* education.

So I'll repeat, I've worked in the commerce sector, now I am in
education my self. And all the people over the 10 years who I showed
Zend. And statisticly I'm sure that some of those programmers would have
been good. Have all had a positive response about Zend. And I'm sure are
using it to this day.

Anyway, my point is... if you are programming a PHP - with OO structure,
obstraction layers. Zend is the way to go. That is all, you can argue
until you are blue in the face that is not, I've used both approaches,
and I can see the plain difference in department now. Right this second.
Not 10-20 years ago. But Now.

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

Ramon wrote:

Oh, and one other thing. I've been training programmers longer than
you've been a programmer. My clients have included a fair percentage of
the Fortune 500 companies, as well as smaller companies.

And I repeat - IDE'S ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE!

I've seen vi programmers outperform ANYTHING someone using TextPad or
ANY other Windows programs - including IDE's - does. And no, I'm not
that good. But these guys (and gals) are.

[Oli Filth]

Andrew DeFaria said the following on 25/10/2005 02:23:

Oli Filth wrote:

Andrew DeFaria said the following on 24/10/2005 22:15:

Oli Filth wrote:
Where's the benefit in having to remember the exact syntax for
hundreds/thousands of functions?

Of what benefit is there to be using functions that you don't know
intimately?!?

Sure, you should know what they do and what you're trying to achieve
by using them, but knowing whether it's xml_parser_crea te() or
XmlParserCreate () or xmlParserCreate () (or equally, whether it's
strstr($needle, $haystack) or strstr($haystac k, $needle)) is nothing
but an exercise in trivia.

No, to me it's a sign that you don't know the function well enough...

I repeat my original point - where's the benefit in learning the precise
syntax for thousands of functions, especially custom functions that may
not be documented, or unfamiliar libraries?

It doesn't make one a better programmer (in the sense of understanding
how to design and construct functional, elegant programs and code), and
is error-prone (in the sense that you have to wait until run-time to
spot your mistakes that would otherwise have been picked up by syntax
highlighting, or wouldn't have been there in the first place due to
autocompletion) .

Just because, for a trivial example, I can't remember whether it's
imagejpeg($sour ce, $filename, $quality) or imagejpeg($file name,
$quality, $source) has no bearing on my understanding of what that
function does or why I want to use it...
Don't get me wrong though, if someone finds writing code easier in
TextPad (or whatever) easier, then I'm not going to dispute that. I just
find it a little tricky to understand.

Unfortunately, most APIs are necessarily complex...

I would agree! Except, of course, for the usage of the word
"necessaril y". For that word I would substitute the word "unnecessarily" .

Depends. Larger APIs ultimately afford you greater flexibility. You
probably couldn't shrink, for example, the Windows or Java APIs without
losing functionality and/or flexibility.

Assembler would be quicker! Running that is. And yes some people
still program in assembler. http://grc.com/smgassembly.htm

Yup, I still do too ;) But only for embedded stuff.

Well if you read the page you would see he write *all* of his
applications in assembly...

Yeah, I noticed that. IMO, that's a pointless waste of time, unless he's
doing it purely for the academic exercise. :)

--
Oli

[Oli Filth]

Andrew DeFaria said the following on 25/10/2005 02:29:

Oli Filth wrote:

Justin Koivisto said the following on 24/10/2005 22:54:

Sure all the code completion and such is nice and *might* save you
time when you are using functions that aren't part of your daily
routine, but if you have only ever used IDEs and not memorized
function names, syntax and return cases, where would you be when you
notice that something is very bad on your site and you don't have
access to your computer (or any computer) with the IDE installed?

I see your point, but that only applies for interpreted/script-based
languages like PHP, VBScript, etc. For anything that requires a
compiler (e.g. C), the point is moot...

Sorry but that does not compute! Why is the presence of a compiler
dictate the need for an IDE? Both the interpreted and compiled based
languages can suffer from the same problem mentioned above.

I was refuting the idea that you could fix code errors on any PC without
"specialist " tools. That only applies for script-based languages, and
therefore isn't a general rule. Wasn't very clear originally, I admit!

My point was
along the lines of "why forego modern technology that's there to make
your life easier?".

The same reason why teenagers always use calculators and have been
losing the ability to compute problems, do arithmetic without a
calculator and to, by extension, think logically. Just because there's a
modern do hickey for something doesn't mean that you can nor should give
up understanding of what's going on under the hood and get your hands
dirty every now and then.

I think there's a difference between IDEs and the calculator example. By
using a calculator to do your sums, it can act as a replacement for
knowing *how* to calculate (I agree, BTW ;) ). Using an IDE to remind
you of function syntax, for example, can't act as a replacement for
knowing *how* to construct a program.

In the case of the IDE, it's not hiding anything "under the hood"
(FrontPage excepted).

Anyway, even intelligent professional mathematicians wouldn't forego a
calculator if they were asked to calculate something like
123.4528*log(3. 573). They'd use the calculator because it makes their
life easier and gets the job done; that doesn't imply that they don't
understand multiplication or logarithms.


--
Oli

[Ramon]

Exactly correct. I've got nothing to proove, I just want to produce
hight quality code, quickly. I still haven't seen one cohisive argument
against, other then: people can do it quicker in a text editor.

Oli Filth wrote:

Andrew DeFaria said the following on 25/10/2005 02:29:

Oli Filth wrote:

Justin Koivisto said the following on 24/10/2005 22:54:

Sure all the code completion and such is nice and *might* save you
time when you are using functions that aren't part of your daily
routine, but if you have only ever used IDEs and not memorized
function names, syntax and return cases, where would you be when you
notice that something is very bad on your site and you don't have
access to your computer (or any computer) with the IDE installed?

I see your point, but that only applies for interpreted/script-based
languages like PHP, VBScript, etc. For anything that requires a
compiler (e.g. C), the point is moot...

Sorry but that does not compute! Why is the presence of a compiler
dictate the need for an IDE? Both the interpreted and compiled based
languages can suffer from the same problem mentioned above.

I was refuting the idea that you could fix code errors on any PC without
"specialist " tools. That only applies for script-based languages, and
therefore isn't a general rule. Wasn't very clear originally, I admit!

My point was along the lines of "why forego modern technology that's
there to make your life easier?".

The same reason why teenagers always use calculators and have been
losing the ability to compute problems, do arithmetic without a
calculator and to, by extension, think logically. Just because there's
a modern do hickey for something doesn't mean that you can nor should
give up understanding of what's going on under the hood and get your
hands dirty every now and then.

I think there's a difference between IDEs and the calculator example. By
using a calculator to do your sums, it can act as a replacement for
knowing *how* to calculate (I agree, BTW ;) ). Using an IDE to remind
you of function syntax, for example, can't act as a replacement for
knowing *how* to construct a program.

In the case of the IDE, it's not hiding anything "under the hood"
(FrontPage excepted).

Anyway, even intelligent professional mathematicians wouldn't forego a
calculator if they were asked to calculate something like
123.4528*log(3. 573). They'd use the calculator because it makes their
life easier and gets the job done; that doesn't imply that they don't
understand multiplication or logarithms.