PHP debugging

[Tim Tyler]

PHP has some pretty funky error messages:

"parse error, unexpected T_IF";
"Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING";

Humans often see these - shouldn't they be more human readable?

....and why are there no stack backtraces?

When a problem arises, I am often interested in knowing where the
problem code was called from.

It seems as though - with PHP - I need third-party debugging tools if I
want to access this information :-|
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ ti*@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

[Tony Marston]

"Default User" <fi********@boeing.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:I3********@news.boeing.com...

Tony Marston wrote:

"Default User" <fi********@boeing.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:I3********@news.boeing.com...

> Tony Marston wrote:
>
>
> If you want to say, "I sure prefer an IDE, it increases my
> productivity", then few will argue with you. I certainly won't. But
> that isn't what you said, is it?

As you are quoting me that must be exactly what I said.

How is that quote? Did you fail to note the preceding phrase "If you
want to say"?

At no time did I state or imply that you had actually said that, in
fact it's abundently clear that I am offering alternative statements to
what you actually said.

Try reading for comprehension.

Brian

[Tony Marston]

"Default User" <fi********@boeing.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:I3********@news.boeing.com...

Tony Marston wrote:

"Default User" <fi********@boeing.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:I3********@news.boeing.com...

> Tony Marston wrote:
>
>
> If you want to say, "I sure prefer an IDE, it increases my
> productivity", then few will argue with you. I certainly won't. But
> that isn't what you said, is it?

As you are quoting me that must be exactly what I said.

How is that quote? Did you fail to note the preceding phrase "If you
want to say"?

At no time did I state or imply that you had actually said that, in
fact it's abundently clear that I am offering alternative statements to
what you actually said.

Try reading for comprehension.

A statement I made in an earlier posting was "I prefer an IDE with an
integrated debugger. A primitive editor and a
separate debugger just slow me down and lower my productivity rate. That is
not good.."

This was to counter the OP's statement "All you need is a good editor and a
good debugger! They need not co-exist in the same window, they just need to
be available." The *you* in that statement is aimed at all programmers. If
personal preference was intended then it should have been *I* not *you*.

As you can see it was the OP's statement that went beyond personal
preference, not mine.

--
Tony Marston

http://www.tonymarston.net

[Daniel Tryba]

Tony Marston <to**@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:

Try reading for comprehension.

A statement I made in an earlier posting was "I prefer an IDE with an
integrated debugger. A primitive editor and a
separate debugger just slow me down and lower my productivity rate. That is
not good.."

This is what one probaly calls selective memory:

"If you are not already using an IDE with an integrated debugger then you
are a junior programmer indeed. Stop whingeing and start using proper
tools."

Guess who said that at the beginning of this thread :)

--

Daniel Tryba

[Daniel Tryba]

Tony Marston <to**@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:

And I am one of them. I have used many editors over many years, but the
first time I tried to use VI I was totally disgusted with it. It was not
intuitive, it was not user-friendly, so I went back to my previous
editor.

So did I, but when I saw people actually working with vi(m) I saw the
power it had.

As far as I am concerned VI sucks, asd so does all its derivatives. Just
reading the manual made me want to puke.

The beauty if vi(m) is that is works everywere. I'm using it to write
this posting, I use it to write java, C, shellscripts, PHP, whatever...
It's installed on every machine I might use. You don't even need an
intelligent terminal to use it.

There is only 1 learningcurve (although a steep one).

BTW I still haven't found a working PHP IDE. And it's not like I dislike
IDEs, I use eclipse fairly often (for the debugger) but just the darn
editor is slow and clumsy.

--

Daniel Tryba

[Daniel Tryba]

R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah <ng**********@rediffmail.com> wrote:

Hit 2: Zend studio
Great debugger, but editor sucks -> not productive enough unless I
_need_ debugger.
Everybody knows, Zend is slow and not pleasant.

But it's the only php IDE I ever used that actually worked.

Hit 6: http://www.xored.com/trustudio
Runs in eclipse, buggy and doesn't appear to have a debugger. So
actually it's only an editor.

Read <http://www.xored.com/trustudio/TruStudio%20Profile.pdf>? The
features are really good (many features are not available in any other
PHP IDEs eg, design view, etc), but I hate eclipse thing.

I personally like eclipse, to bad the thing is so buggy. I'll try a non
stable version next.
Probably the cheap alternative will be PHPEclipse
<http://www.phpeclipse.de/>
Last time I tried it (about a year ago), it was unworkable.
I would also recommend PHP Coder, devphp and Komodo. Komodo also
uses xdebug; but it is not designed only for PHP and it has
multi-platform support.

For Linux users, Komodo might be the better alternative. But,
AFAIK many Linux users seem to be much humourous to use vim, emacs,
etc for PHP;)

Komodo will be next.

--

Daniel Tryba

[Virgil Green]

"Tony Marston" <to**@NOSPAM.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ch*******************@news.demon.co.uk...

"Virgil Green" <vj*@DESPAMobsydian.com> wrote in message
news:eP*****************@newssvr23.news.prodigy.co m...

"Tony Marston" <to**@NOSPAM.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ch*******************@news.demon.co.uk...

"Virgil Green" <vj*@DESPAMobsydian.com> wrote in message
news:0F*******************@newssvr22.news.prodigy. com...
> "Tony Marston" <to**@NOSPAM.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:ch*******************@news.demon.co.uk...
>>
>> > More productive? Probably. Better programmer? Only if you were inclined

> to
>> > become a better programmer without the IDE.
>>
>> Being a "better programmer" is supposed to encompass both accuracy and >> speed. Compared to an IDE a simple text editor is too slow. If being

able

> to
>> use a primitive tool even though it decreases your productivity is

*your*

>> measure of being a better programmer then I suppose back in the days
>> of
>> punched cards you would have been one of those who stayed with a
>> primitive
>> non-interpretive hand punch while the rest of us were using VIPs
>> (Verifier-Interpreter-Punch).
>
> That would be "faster coder" not "better programmer".

If I can produce the same quality code with or without an IDE, but an IDE enables me to work faster, then surely that means better. If programmer A can do the same job as programmer B but in half the time, then A is twice

as

good as B.

No, it only means that in the narrow circumstance of Programmer A working in
his preferred IDE that he is a faster coder - not a better programmer...
assuming programmer A and B are producing the same quality code.

In the commercial world if two programmers can do exactly the same job,

but one can do it faster than the other then he/she is deemed to be *better* as he/she is more likely to hit the target both in timescale and budget. A slow programmer is more likely to extend the timescales and budget.
But the faster programmer is only faster in the limited case in which you
allow him to use the IDE of his choice. If A were required to use the
non-IDE environment and produced code slower than B (the same quality code
using the same tools) would you concede, assuming you were programmer A,
that B was the better programmer?
> I'd rather have good
> code slower than bad code faster any day.

Whoever said that using an IDE gives you speed at the expense of

quality?
No one. That was meant to illustrate the difference between a "better
programmer" and a "faster coder". I know more than a few coders who can be really fast, but their code is crap because they're not good programmers. Since you have been focusing on the speed and/or productivity provided by an
IDE (and I'll grant that we have not defined the term "productivity"), my point is that creating code faster is not necessarily better and has
little
to do with whether one is a "better programmer".

> The ideal, good code faster, is
> not a function of the IDE making you a better programmer. It is a
> function of a "better programmer" seeking out the tools to help him
> be a "faster coder".

Yes, and I can code faster with an IDE+Debugger than without one.

But it doesn't make you a better programmer, only a faster coder.
Fortunately, we can assume that the code is that of a "better programmer" even though the IDE only makes you faster, not better. The "better" part
is
separate and distinct from the speed with which you whip out the code. In fact, another programmer who produces programs that are just as good as
you
while using the same IDE you use, but taking longer to do it would
illustrate the fact that you are merely a "better user" of the IDE in
question, rather than the better programmer.

I did not say that using an IDE+debugger makes you produce better code,

but that it makes you produce the same quality code but faster, and a faster
programmer is better than a slower programmer.

I never claimed you said that. I will allow and even claim that a programmer
who can conceptualize and design identical code faster than another
programmer is the better programmer (in the short term and in a given
circumstance... things might be reversed on the next problem/project), but
producing the actual code faster by using an IDE does *not* make you the
better programmer... it just make you the faster coder.

- Virgil

[Tim Tyler]

Tony Marston <to**@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote or quoted:

A statement I made in an earlier posting was "I prefer an IDE with an
integrated debugger. A primitive editor and a
separate debugger just slow me down and lower my productivity rate. That is
not good.."

This was to counter the OP's statement "All you need is a good editor and a
good debugger! They need not co-exist in the same window, they just need to
be available." The *you* in that statement is aimed at all programmers. If
personal preference was intended then it should have been *I* not *you*.

As you can see it was the OP's statement that went beyond personal
preference, not mine.

I'm the OP - and I never said that - or anything remotely resembling it.

Nor did anyone else in this thread say that.

So: please try to take some care to avoid making material up, putting
quotation marks around the result - and then attributing the result
to the wrong person.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ ti*@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

[Virgil Green]

"Tim Tyler" <ti*@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:I3********@bath.ac.uk...

Tony Marston <to**@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote or quoted:

A statement I made in an earlier posting was "I prefer an IDE with an
integrated debugger. A primitive editor and a
separate debugger just slow me down and lower my productivity rate. That is not good.."

This was to counter the OP's statement "All you need is a good editor and a good debugger! They need not co-exist in the same window, they just need to be available." The *you* in that statement is aimed at all programmers. If personal preference was intended then it should have been *I* not *you*.

As you can see it was the OP's statement that went beyond personal
preference, not mine.

I'm the OP - and I never said that - or anything remotely resembling it.

Nor did anyone else in this thread say that.

Actually, Andrew DeFaria said exactly that. But it was a far less egregious
statement than Tony's "If you are not already using an IDE with an
integrated debugger then you are a junior programmer indeed. Stop whingeing
(sic) and start using proper tools." which was the primary spark of this
debate.

- Virgil

[Andrew DeFaria]

Virgil Green wrote:

"Tim Tyler" <ti*@tt1lock.org> wrote in message
news:I3********@bath.ac.uk...

Tony Marston <to**@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote or quoted:

A statement I made in an earlier posting was "I prefer an IDE with an
integrated debugger. A primitive editor and a
separate debugger just slow me down and lower my productivity rate. That

is

not good.."

This was to counter the OP's statement "All you need is a good editor

and a

good debugger! They need not co-exist in the same window, they just need

to

be available." The *you* in that statement is aimed at all programmers.

If

personal preference was intended then it should have been *I* not *you*.

As you can see it was the OP's statement that went beyond personal
preference, not mine.

I'm the OP - and I never said that - or anything remotely resembling it.

Nor did anyone else in this thread say that.

Actually, Andrew DeFaria said exactly that.

I said exactly what?
But it was a far less egregious statement than Tony's "If you are not
already using an IDE with an integrated debugger then you are a junior
programmer indeed. Stop whingeing (sic) and start using proper tools."
which was the primary spark of this debate.

If you're gonna go through the trouble of attributing a statement to me
(including spelling and capitalizing my last name they way I like it)
then at least actually copy or refer to the quote directly. I"m not sure
what "that" really is in this context but I know I surely didn't say
anything akin to "you're a junior programmer if your not using an IDE".
I"m on the Non-IDE side anyway!
--
I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.

[Tim Tyler]

Virgil Green <vj*@despamobsydian.com> wrote or quoted:

"Tim Tyler" <ti*@tt1lock.org> wrote in message news:I3********@bath.ac.uk...

Tony Marston <to**@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote or quoted:

This was to counter the OP's statement "All you need is a good editor
and a good debugger! They need not co-exist in the same window,
they just need to be available." [...]

I'm the OP - and I never said that - or anything remotely resembling it.

Nor did anyone else in this thread say that.

Actually, Andrew DeFaria said exactly that. [...]

Ah - give or take a full-stop or so. My mistake - sorry.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ ti*@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

[Virgil Green]

"Andrew DeFaria" <An****@DeFaria.com> wrote in message
news:e1*************************@msgid.meganewsser vers.com...

I said exactly what?
Tim, being the OP, was erroneously attributed with "All you need is a good
editor and a good debugger! They need not co-exist in the same window, they
just need to be available."

Tim claimed he had not made such a statement and that no one had in this
thread. I determined that you had made the very statement (with which I
agree) and so I posted that it had been stated in the thread and provided
the proper attribution. Here is the full paragraph from your post of
08/30/2004:

"Nonsense. All you need is a good editor and a good debugger! They need not
co-exist in the same window, they just need to be available - and good.
Tools are indeed tools. As such they should be separate and focus on the
issue of the problem they are designed to address. I don't have a
hammer/screwdriver/axe/drill combo - I have separates. Each tool is good at
what it was designed to do and these tools can be used together if need be."
If you're gonna go through the trouble of attributing a
statement to me (including spelling and capitalizing my
last name they way I like it) then at least actually copy
or refer to the quote directly. I"m not sure what "that"
really is in this context but I know I surely didn't say
anything akin to "you're a junior programmer if your
not using an IDE". I"m on the Non-IDE side anyway!

Since the post I made included the original quote attributed to the OP, and
the OP stated that the quote was not his, I believe that the use of "that"
was clearly referencing the mis-attributed remark. However, I have produced
it here in better context. And, yes, I'd hate for someone to think you were
responsible for the "junior programmer" remark!

- Virgil

[Christian Fersch]

Jasper Bryant-Greene wrote:

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

Which IDE you would recommend? Perfer run on Linux.

In Windows, Notepad.

hahaha
You "code" in notepad. I would really love to see you doing that.
Capture a video and send it to me next time I'm bored. Will be a good laugh.
Notepad - an editor, which is not able to open Linux textfiles, which
has no sort of auto-intend, not to speak of line numbering or syntax
highlight.
That is not an editor, this is crap.

I hope you were joking, or are you seriously "using" notepad?

shocked greetings, Christian.

[Christian Fersch]

Daniel Tryba wrote:

I tried Zend studio once, it' s debugger is great. The editor was IMHO
horrible. As long as there are no problems in code/server, a "simple
editor" is fasted, in the case of bugs in complex datasctructures a
decent debugger is needed. But there is absolutly no need to have them
integrated.

But enlighten me, what IDE (for PHP) should I take a look at?

I share your opinion, that Zend studios is a horrible, overloaded
editor. Impossible to code with that crap.

Take a look a nusphere phpEd. It's fast and has everything you need. But
you have to say, that you have to give it about an hour to get used to
it's handling of projects and its workspace-feature. Seems strange at
the beginning, but really great features once you got used to them.

greetings, Christian.

[Christian Fersch]

Tony Marston wrote:

I develop on Windows, not Linux, so I use PHPEdit from
http://www.waterproof.fr/

holy shit - this editor is fucking overloaded, slow and unusable.
I have an AMD64-3200 machine witch 1gb ram here and phpEdit was still slow.

[Tim Tyler]

Colin McKinnon <co**************@andthis.mms3.com> wrote or quoted:

WRT the OP's questions:

http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function...or-handler.php
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function...-reporting.php
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function...-backtrace.php
Useful - thanks. I wound up writing my own error handler - and it
seems to work OK.
You might also find the lint option useful
(http://uk.php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.php) although it's only a
static check of the current file.

I've been using that. It's useful - but hardly qualifies as much of a
lint tool in my book.

I'd welcome proper lint and formatting tools for PHP - but haven't yet
found anything very useful in those departments.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ ti*@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

[Christian Fersch]

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I'm struggling to understand why my name appears here. I did not say
"Which IDE you would recommend? Perfer run on Linux" nor did I say "In
Windows, Notepad" (Actually in Windows I use XEmacs...). As such, why is
my name appearing?

sry, quoting mistake

Notepad - an editor, which is not able to open Linux textfiles,

Hmmmm... Sorry, but I've actually used Notepad to open Linux textfiles.
It works. Looks funny but it works!

Of course it "works"
But you can't do anything with that crap you just opened.

not to speak of line numbering or syntax highlight.

While I agree that syntax highlighting is cool and indeed useful do you
realize how much good code has been writing before it's advent?

Well, do you realize how many houses have been build before the crane
was invented?
That's not an argument.

That is not an editor, this is crap.

It is an editor. It's not a good editor. It's not an editor for
programming, though it can be used as such.

Of course it can but it will bring your productivity down to somewhere
at 20%.

I hope you were joking, or are you seriously "using" notepad?

Hell I use notepad too - when I have to! As a contractor often you have
to deal with environments where they don't want you installing anything
and all you're left with is what comes default.

Yeah, there may always be a case where you may need to use notepad. But
that's not point - Jasper Bryant said, that notepad was his editor of
choice.

greetings, Christian

[Christian Fersch]

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

You see this is another point. I don't want a PHPEdit or Zend or
nusphere phpEd IDE etc. I don't only code in PHP. I code in PHP, Perl,
bash, awk, sed, html, xml, etc, etc. I want one editor, one set of
keystrokes and concepts that dynamically adapts to what I'm doing and
uses the appropriate mode in the appropriate look and feel so that the
only thing really changing behind me is the language, not my
editor/environment, not the whole IDE and not state of the world, one
for each language such as the IDE per language approach! If PHPEdit is
overloaded and slow then what would using PHPEdit for php, some Perl IDE
for Perl, an IDE for bash scripting, awk scripting, html editor suite do
to a poor little machine?!? Let alone the confusion! That's why I use
XEmacs.

You can replace PHPEdit with 20 other tools and your pc will still be
faster. believe me - this program doesn't even react to keystrokes
immediately.
I prefer using nusphere phpEd for php and ultraEdit for the rest. I once
used only ultraEdit for much worse than a ide missing features is a
totally overloaded ide. But I just found out, that I'm a lot faster in
coding, by using phpEd in addition to UltraEdit. So I would propose you
to use phpEd for php and pearl and ultraEdit for the rest (phpEd is also
able to edit html, but for html you don't need any ide-features, and
ultraEdit is just the much more powerful text-editor). Your poor machine
should survive 2 programs and when using phpEd you don't need a browser
for the docs, so you save 1 program again.
Of course I understand what's your point, but you can trust me in that
you should really take a look at phpEd. You won't give it away anymore
after you used it once.

greetings, Christian

[Andrew DeFaria]

Christian Fersch wrote:

Notepad - an editor, which is not able to open Linux textfiles,

Hmmmm... Sorry, but I've actually used Notepad to open Linux
textfiles. It works. Looks funny but it works!

Of course it "works" But you can't do anything with that crap you
just opened.

Maybe you can't but I can. Granted it's not easy nor a productive
environment (nor is it my first choice) but you *can *do editing in it.

not to speak of line numbering or syntax highlight.

While I agree that syntax highlighting is cool and indeed useful do
you realize how much good code has been writing before it's advent?

Well, do you realize how many houses have been build before the crane
was invented? That's not an argument.

It's not an argument - it's simply a statement. Think of it as giving
credit or paying homage. Given a choice I would choose syntax
highlighting over no highlighting all other things being equal...

That is not an editor, this is crap.

It is an editor. It's not a good editor. It's not an editor for
programming, though it can be used as such.

Of course it can but it will bring your productivity down to somewhere
at 20%.

Granted but that flies in the face of your earlier statement of "But you
_can't do anything_ with that crap you just opened".

I hope you were joking, or are you seriously "using" notepad?

Hell I use notepad too - when I have to! As a contractor often you
have to deal with environments where they don't want you installing
anything and all you're left with is what comes default.

Yeah, there may always be a case where you may need to use notepad.
But that's not point - Jasper Bryant said, that notepad was his editor
of choice.

Well I, like you apparently, think that that is Jasper's problem! :-)

When people say "an editor is an editor" my favorite retort does not
pick on notepad (which is an editor of little power but is capible
nonetheless) rather I say "well hell cat(1) can be an editor too. Just
cat > myfile.c and make sure you type it in correctly this time! However
some of us want an editor with slightly more power...". :-)
--
24 hours in a day...24 beers in a case...coincidence?

[Andrew DeFaria]

Christian Fersch wrote:

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

You see this is another point. I don't want a PHPEdit or Zend or
nusphere phpEd IDE etc. I don't only code in PHP. I code in PHP,
Perl, bash, awk, sed, html, xml, etc, etc. I want one editor, one set
of keystrokes and concepts that dynamically adapts to what I'm doing
and uses the appropriate mode in the appropriate look and feel so
that the only thing really changing behind me is the language, not my
editor/environment, not the whole IDE and not state of the world, one
for each language such as the IDE per language approach! If PHPEdit
is overloaded and slow then what would using PHPEdit for php, some
Perl IDE for Perl, an IDE for bash scripting, awk scripting, html
editor suite do to a poor little machine?!? Let alone the confusion!
That's why I use XEmacs.
You can replace PHPEdit with 20 other tools and your pc will still be
faster. believe me - this program doesn't even react to keystrokes
immediately.

See that's the point. I don't need PHPEdit and/or 20 other tools to try
to solve this problem. XEmacs will already handles it.
I prefer using nusphere phpEd for php and ultraEdit for the rest.
Question: Why not just use ultraEdit for all? IOW what makes PHP special?
I once used only ultraEdit for much worse than a ide missing features
is a totally overloaded ide. But I just found out, that I'm a lot
faster in coding, by using phpEd in addition to UltraEdit.
Then wouldn't you be likewise much faster coding your Perl in a Perl
IDE, your TCL in a TCL IDE, your sh scripts in a SH IDE, etc?
So I would propose you to use phpEd for php and pearl
What's pearl? Do you mean Perl? Perl's a language not an IDE.
and ultraEdit for the rest (phpEd is also able to edit html, but for
html you don't need any ide-features, and ultraEdit is just the much
more powerful text-editor).
I prefer XEmacs for editing text of any kind. This includes PHP, Perl,
html, etc.
Your poor machine should survive 2 programs and when using phpEd you
don't need a browser for the docs, so you save 1 program again.
I'm not worried about *my* poor machine (well actually I am as it's a
450 MHz, 6 year old jobber) rather what I'm saying is that across all of
these various IDEs that one could use they all do one basic thing - edit
source files which are ultimately text files. I've got a good editor
that does that. And I do not want to install, learn, maintain 6 IDEs for
6 languages when one good editor will suffice. That's the point that I
was making. And yes it's my preference and no I'm not claiming it makes
me a better programmer.
Of course I understand what's your point, but you can trust me in that
you should really take a look at phpEd. You won't give it away anymore
after you used it once.

Perhaps but quite honestly I don't write a ton of PHP. I've written
some. It's an interesting language and I think it's quite useful and as
such I've incorporated it into my web site. However this is all home
stuff. I don't have a current assignment writing PHP. Actually lately
I've been writing Visual Basic Script much to my own chagrin and yes I
simply loaded the visual-basic-mode.el in XEmacs and away I went. I have
Visual Studio installed here at work but quite frankly I cannot be
bothered to take the who knows how long it would take me to learn that
IDE! And besides, if I ever decide to utilize some Visual Basic Script
at home you can bet your sweet bippie I'm not gonna plunk down a couple
of hundred dollars for Visual Studio!

--
Help Wanted: Telepath. You know where to apply.

[Chris Hope]

Tim Tyler wrote:

WRT the OP's questions:

http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function...or-handler.php
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function...-reporting.php
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/function...-backtrace.php

Useful - thanks.**I*wound*up*writing*my*own*error*handler*-*and*it
seems to work OK.

BTW, debug_backtrace() is only available from 4.3.0 and on. If you're going
to be implementing your projects on servers that have older versions ofPHP
then you won't be able to use it.

--
Chris Hope - The Electric Toolbox - http://www.electrictoolbox.com/

[Tim Tyler]

Chris Hope <bl*******@electrictoolbox.com> wrote or quoted:

BTW, debug_backtrace() is only available from 4.3.0 and on. If you're going
to be implementing your projects on servers that have older versions of PHP
then you won't be able to use it.

Fortunately, that probably isn't much of an issue - but thanks for
pointing it out.

I'm sure PHP can be made to fail gracefully in this case - if need be.

Of course - none of my deployed programs ever produce error messages at
the level of PHP anyway ;-)
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ ti*@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

[Christian Fersch]

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

When people say "an editor is an editor" my favorite retort does not
pick on notepad (which is an editor of little power but is capible
nonetheless) rather I say "well hell cat(1) can be an editor too. Just
cat > myfile.c and make sure you type it in correctly this time! However
some of us want an editor with slightly more power...". :-)

agreed :)

[Christian Fersch]

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I prefer using nusphere phpEd for php and ultraEdit for the rest. Question: Why not just use ultraEdit for all? IOW what makes PHP special?

I'll tell ya: Php is a lot more complex than the others and for example
I can't remember all the function parameters. In ultraedit this needs me
to select the function name, press my hotkey and so I open a browser
window in which I can see the parameters. But if it's a self-written
function included from another file, I will have to switch to that file
(or maybe open in first) and have to look there for the parameters.
And now the power of phpEd: I don't stop coding a second, just press
shift+ctrl+space and this is what comes up:
http://www.nusphere.com/graphics/phpscreen_4_big.png
(I'm speaking of the tooltip, not code-completing)
It recognizes costum classes and functions included/required from other
files. Simply everything. And it even has support for phpDoc -> If I
documented my function, I will see it in that tooltip.

If I need the name of a database-column, I would have to switch to
phpMyAdmin and look there. In phpEd I have one click and I see my
database structure on the right and I can even drag'n'drop the column
and table names.

I once used only ultraEdit for much worse than a ide missing features
is a totally overloaded ide. But I just found out, that I'm a lot
faster in coding, by using phpEd in addition to UltraEdit.

Then wouldn't you be likewise much faster coding your Perl in a Perl
IDE, your TCL in a TCL IDE, your sh scripts in a SH IDE, etc?

I don't know TCL, but I'm sure I don't need a sh script IDE. That's not
complex enough.
I write my code with phpEd at home, but at work I write it with
ultraEdit (I'm the only one writing php there, having my own project and
my boss went crazy when I showed the 500$ phpEd-license ;). And I just
feel the difference. Coding in phpEd is a lot faster and easier.

So I would propose you to use phpEd for php and pearl

What's pearl? Do you mean Perl? Perl's a language not an IDE.

I know - phpEd also supports Pearl

and ultraEdit for the rest (phpEd is also able to edit html, but for
html you don't need any ide-features, and ultraEdit is just the much
more powerful text-editor).

I prefer XEmacs for editing text of any kind. This includes PHP, Perl,
html, etc.

You should try UltraEdit - I haven't tried XEmacs yet, but it just can't
be as powerful as ultraEdit :)

and no I'm not claiming it makes me a better programmer.
Who would claim such a bullshit?
Even a little child would understand, that it's the result and the used
time that makes a good programmer, not the way the code was written.

Perhaps but quite honestly I don't write a ton of PHP. I've written
some. It's an interesting language and I think it's quite useful and as
such I've incorporated it into my web site. However this is all home
stuff. I don't have a current assignment writing PHP.

Well, if you don't write a lot of php, there is of course no use in
getting used to an special IDE just for that language. That's not worth
the time. But I'm working with it a lot, having written a cms and an
user helpdesk. Getting used to an IDE for a language you don't actually
work with is of course silly and a waste of time.
greetings, Christian

[Christian Fersch]

Tim Tyler wrote:

Of course - none of my deployed programs ever produce error messages at
the level of PHP anyway ;-)

Yeah, no need for debugging functions on a production server.

[Andrew DeFaria]

Christian Fersch wrote:

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I prefer using nusphere phpEd for php and ultraEdit for the rest.
Question: Why not just use ultraEdit for all? IOW what makes PHP
special?

I'll tell ya: Php is a lot more complex than the others and for
example I can't remember all the function parameters. In ultraedit
this needs me to select the function name, press my hotkey and so I
open a browser window in which I can see the parameters.

I don't find PHP any more complicated than any other language that
supports a lot of functions such as say Perl. Personally I have an
editor up and I have a browser up at http://php.net. When I want to know
what a function does I simply type the function name into the search in
php.net and hit enter. No biggie.
But if it's a self-written function included from another file, I will
have to switch to that file (or maybe open in first) and have to look
there for the parameters. And now the power of phpEd: I don't stop
coding a second, just press shift+ctrl+space and this is what comes
up: http://www.nusphere.com/graphics/phpscreen_4_big.png (I'm speaking
of the tooltip, not code-completing) It recognizes costum classes and
functions included/required from other files. Simply everything. And
it even has support for phpDoc -> If I documented my function, I will
see it in that tooltip.

If I need the name of a database-column, I would have to switch to
phpMyAdmin and look there. In phpEd I have one click and I see my
database structure on the right and I can even drag'n'drop the column
and table names.
I don't find switching something that is that difficult nor do I think
that the nicety of not having to switch worth spending months learning a
totally new environment. YMMV.

In any event I would think that the same advantages you describe here
would exist for other languages such a Perl, shell scripting, awk, etc.
By your argument above one should have an IDE for each. Way too much
learning time in my book...

I once used only ultraEdit for much worse than a ide missing
features is a totally overloaded ide. But I just found out, that I'm
a lot faster in coding, by using phpEd in addition to UltraEdit.

Then wouldn't you be likewise much faster coding your Perl in a Perl
IDE, your TCL in a TCL IDE, your sh scripts in a SH IDE, etc?

I don't know TCL, but I'm sure I don't need a sh script IDE. That's
not complex enough.

Shell scripts can and do get pretty complex and an IDE could benefit
from an IDE that assist the programmer. But I agree with you - I don't
need an IDE for shell scripts, just like I don't need an IDE for PHP.
I write my code with phpEd at home, but at work I write it with
ultraEdit (I'm the only one writing php there, having my own project
and my boss went crazy when I showed the 500$ phpEd-license ;). And I
just feel the difference. Coding in phpEd is a lot faster and easier.
Exactly! $500 for a program?!? On my budget? I don't think so. Did you
actually shell out $500 for this program? All for the niceties of being
able to hover over a function name to see it's parameters? (I know there
are probably other niceties) Well I know that would not justify that
cost to me. Again YMMV but me I'll simply bring up another buffer in
XEmacs and read the function prototype or use a browser on php.net and
save the $500!

So I would propose you to use phpEd for php and pearl

What's pearl? Do you mean Perl? Perl's a language not an IDE.

I know - phpEd also supports Pearl

OK, I would have thought that that was a typo but you either typed again
or Pearl is something different so again I ask What's Pearl?

and ultraEdit for the rest (phpEd is also able to edit html, but for
html you don't need any ide-features, and ultraEdit is just the much
more powerful text-editor).

I prefer XEmacs for editing text of any kind. This includes PHP,
Perl, html, etc.

You should try UltraEdit - I haven't tried XEmacs yet, but it just
can't be as powerful as ultraEdit :)

Depends on your definition of "power" I guess. Looked over the features
briefly and as far as I'm concerned XEmacs does all that already anyway
(at least the parts that I care about). Don't see the need of investing
a significant amount of time learning a new editor when about all I'd
get in addition is prettiness.

and no I'm not claiming it makes me a better programmer.

Who would claim such a bullshit?

People here have been trying :-)
Even a little child would understand, that it's the result and the
used time that makes a good programmer, not the way the code was written.

Perhaps but quite honestly I don't write a ton of PHP. I've written
some. It's an interesting language and I think it's quite useful and
as such I've incorporated it into my web site. However this is all
home stuff. I don't have a current assignment writing PHP.

Well, if you don't write a lot of php, there is of course no use in
getting used to an special IDE just for that language. That's not
worth the time. But I'm working with it a lot, having written a cms
and an user helpdesk. Getting used to an IDE for a language you don't
actually work with is of course silly and a waste of time.

I guess my points are:

1. I work in many languages
2. XEmacs handles them all
3. I don't need kitchen sink IDEs and I prefer using a set of tools
each specialized in doing one job well.
4. Don't need fancy eye candy to program
5. Don't want to have to spend my programming time learning IDEs
rather I want to learn the language and it's functionality.
6. I don't have a budget for spending tons of $$$ on IDEs
--
Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.

[Default User]

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I don't find PHP any more complicated than any other language that
supports a lot of functions such as say Perl. Personally I have an
editor up and I have a browser up at http://php.net. When I want to
know what a function does I simply type the function name into the
search in php.net and hit enter. No biggie.

As I do most of my development off-line, I went ahead and downloaded
the "one big HTML file" version of the manual.

Brian

[Ian.H]

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 21:23:35 GMT, "Default User"
<fi********@boeing.com.invalid> wrote:

Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I don't find PHP any more complicated than any other language that
supports a lot of functions such as say Perl. Personally I have an
editor up and I have a browser up at http://php.net. When I want to
know what a function does I simply type the function name into the
search in php.net and hit enter. No biggie.

As I do most of my development off-line, I went ahead and downloaded
the "one big HTML file" version of the manual.

Brian

Don't know if of any use, something I hacked together a little while ago
(windoze):
<http://forum.digiserv.net/dload.php?action=info&id=25>
Simple app that sits in the systray.. either on / offline mode for PHP
manual searching.. online mode also performs the rest of the php.net
search options. It's just a small "front-end" I found useful for "quick
lookups" (something I actually liked about Zend Studio that UEdit is
missing), this _sort of_ fills a gap, for me anyway.

Regards,

Ian

--
Ian.H
digiServ Network
London, UK
http://digiserv.net/

[Average_Joe]

In article <de***************************@msgid.meganewsserve rs.com>, Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I don't find PHP any more complicated than any other language that
supports a lot of functions such as say Perl. Personally I have an
editor up and I have a browser up at http://php.net. When I want to know
what a function does I simply type the function name into the search in
php.net and hit enter. No biggie.

I don't recall how to do this in emacs, though I'm sure it's possible.

In vim I ':set keywordprg' to a shell script that simply invokes the "links"
browser with the function as a parameter. My shell script (simple 5 liner)
looks up the docs on my web server. Looking up docs is a matter of moving
the cursor over the function and pressing 'K'. And.. best of all, I can do
similiar tricks in any language I want! :-) (I chose links because I wanted to,
you could use mozilla as well if you perfer)

I know this almost _has_ to be possible in emacs, I used to have xjed (an emacs
clone) call perldoc for me in the same manner.

Emacs has all kinds of cool stuff for browsing online documentation, in fact,
it has a whole info system. (texinfo) if that isn't enough you can get a web
browser for it that works within one of it's buffers. (I never cared for it
though) Vim, being designed more along the lines of "lets just edit text and
be darn good at it" allows you to shell out to an external 'info' program to
browse the same documentation, of course it works with web browsers too.

As far as getting at functions YOU define, in emacs I believe it's ESC-.
(Might be ESC-/ I don't recall) It'll use a program called [ce]tags and jump to
the location of the function. In vim the way to return is ^T, as I'm sure emacs
has an equiv. function some place. You'll likely have to patch your ctags if
you're using PHP5. (Not a big deal, but the patch I found had a problem with a
variable being defined in the wrong scope and my compiler didn't like it.)

One really cool thing about emacs is that if you are able to use gnuclient,
you can login from remote, use gnuclient to fire up emacs and pick up where
you left off. (Ex: to save your files and begin a new editor) With vim, I use
'screen', but there are ways of doing it with it's graphical editor too. I wonder
how many monolithic IDE's have this function?

With emacs, there is a class browser that I'm almost positive HAS to work with
PHP, as it does perl, java, etc.. (vim has :Tlist which is similiar, and it does
work with PHP5, because it uses ctags)

I was a big time emacs biggot, hated vi[m] for several years, the only reason I
switched is that like you, I wanted my editor to work everywhere, even systems
that are 1/2 baked. (and emacs kept trashing my code with it's autoindent)
There are a lot of differences, (For instance vim is modal, which takes a LOT
of getting used to) but on a design scale, seems like vim is designed to work
within the shell, while emacs is designed to be or invoke a shell. Vim has a
lot faster startup time. Emacs is a lot slower, but heck, you're probably
*reading this post with emacs*, unless you need to do a lot of system admin
stuff, you probably never shut emacs down, making it's start time a non-issue.
:-)

I haven't tried it with vim, but, emacs has a nice interface to the 'gdb'
program, which can debug lots of languages. Unfortunately PHP is not one of
them. (However you can do a syntax check with something like 'make syntax'
using php -l and a make file, I wrote a quick script to filter php -l's output
so that vim's :copen would work, one would imagine the same is possible in
emacs: ESC-x make)

My whole point here is that a system with several programs that work together
can accomplish a LOT more than 1 monolithic program. ctags doesn't NEED to
worry about editing text, grep doesn't care about browsing results and
'make' can focus on giving you headaches with <TAB> :-) (You can use an
alternative 'make' such as 'ant' if you like)

Would be nice if there were a stand alone debugger that did nothing but debug
PHP, ideally using gdb.. I'll use 'tail -f error_log' before investing the
hours required to use an IDE though. (Been there, done that, not doing it
again)

There are those that'll surely say: "Yea, but you had to write a couple
glue scripts" Well, I'll offer to give them to anyone who'll give me
just 1/2 of what they spent on a commercial PHP IDE, a real bargain! :-)

Some will say, "Yea, but you spent hours learning emacs or vim" True, but,
now I can apply the same knowledge when editing any text.

Jamie
--
http://www.geniegate.com Custom web programming
User Management Solutions Perl / PHP / Java / UNIX

[Andrew DeFaria]

Average_Joe wrote:

In article <de***************************@msgid.meganewsserve rs.com>,
Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I don't find PHP any more complicated than any other language that
supports a lot of functions such as say Perl. Personally I have an
editor up and I have a browser up at http://php.net. When I want to know
what a function does I simply type the function name into the search
in php.net and hit enter. No biggie.
I don't recall how to do this in emacs, though I'm sure it's possible.

As I am also sure there is however I don't go that far with it. It's OK
with me to simply bring up a browser window, which is usually running
anyway and simply type php.net then <function name> and enter. If I were
programming 80% of my day in PHP or Perl or whatever, then I would
invest the time to figure out the integration. Hell I don't even use
ctag as you describe 'cause I am more witting admin scripts than whole
applications. However if I were writing whole applications I would look
into and use ctag, et. al.
In vim I ':set keywordprg' to a shell script that simply invokes the
"links" browser with the function as a parameter. My shell script
(simple 5 liner) looks up the docs on my web server. Looking up docs
is a matter of moving the cursor over the function and pressing 'K'.
And.. best of all, I can do similiar tricks in any language I want!
:-) (I chose links because I wanted to, you could use mozilla as well
if you perfer)

I know this almost _has_ to be possible in emacs, I used to have xjed
(an emacs clone) call perldoc for me in the same manner.

Emacs has all kinds of cool stuff for browsing online documentation,
in fact, it has a whole info system. (texinfo) if that isn't enough
you can get a web browser for it that works within one of it's
buffers. (I never cared for it though) Vim, being designed more along
the lines of "lets just edit text and be darn good at it" allows you
to shell out to an external 'info' program to browse the same
documentation, of course it works with web browsers too.
I think that Emacs also "edits text and be's darn good at it" too. As
you say their approaches to external processes is sometimes different.
Still the concept is a bunch of smaller tools, good at what they do,
that can be made to talk to each other, sometimes with a little glue
(AKA customizing) to give you a much more powerful suite of things.
As far as getting at functions YOU define, in emacs I believe it's
ESC-. (Might be ESC-/ I don't recall) It'll use a program called
[ce]tags and jump to the location of the function. In vim the way to
return is ^T, as I'm sure emacs has an equiv. function some place.
You'll likely have to patch your ctags if you're using PHP5. (Not a
big deal, but the patch I found had a problem with a variable being
defined in the wrong scope and my compiler didn't like it.)

One really cool thing about emacs is that if you are able to use
gnuclient, you can login from remote, use gnuclient to fire up emacs
and pick up where you left off. (Ex: to save your files and begin a
new editor) With vim, I use 'screen', but there are ways of doing it
with it's graphical editor too. I wonder how many monolithic IDE's
have this function?

With emacs, there is a class browser that I'm almost positive HAS to
work with PHP, as it does perl, java, etc.. (vim has :Tlist which is
similiar, and it does work with PHP5, because it uses ctags)

I was a big time emacs biggot, hated vi[m] for several years, the only
reason I switched is that like you, I wanted my editor to work
everywhere, even systems that are 1/2 baked. (and emacs kept trashing
my code with it's autoindent)
Trashing code with autoindent can be "fixed" (I believe you meant that
it made your code "unpretty" not made it syntactically incorrect). As
for 1/2 baked systems - bake 'em! If it's screwed up then fix it. If you
need Emacs then install it (Back to IDE's for a second, what does the
IDE user do when he gets a 1/2 baked system that lacks his favorite
IDEs? He must install them which may be 1) prohibited by the client and
2) expensive!)
There are a lot of differences, (For instance vim is modal, which
takes a LOT of getting used to) but on a design scale, seems like vim
is designed to work within the shell, while emacs is designed to be or
invoke a shell. Vim has a lot faster startup time. Emacs is a lot
slower, but heck, you're probably *reading this post with emacs*,
unless you need to do a lot of system admin stuff, you probably never
shut emacs down, making it's start time a non-issue. :-)
Well I don't read news from Emacs (GNUS is pretty heavy and not that
pretty) but in general, yes I do keep emacs up most of the day.

(Back in my HP days, before X11 even, there was a windowing environment
called IVO for Interactive Visual Office I believe. Well on HP Lab guy
(Doug Young was it?) took GNU Emacs of the time and made it for IVO
calling it gnuvo. It had the ability to separate the minibuffer. Back
when VUE (another HP invention based on X11 this time can stood for
Visual User Environment and is actually 80% of what CDE is) was starting
I used to configure my emacs minibuffer into a row in the "dashboard" of
VUE. Ergo Emacs was always running and a quick mouse motion to the
minibuffer and find-file would bring up a buffer).
I haven't tried it with vim, but, emacs has a nice interface to the
'gdb' program, which can debug lots of languages. Unfortunately PHP is
not one of them. (However you can do a syntax check with something
like 'make syntax' using php -l and a make file, I wrote a quick
script to filter php -l's output so that vim's :copen would work, one
would imagine the same is possible in emacs: ESC-x make)

My whole point here is that a system with several programs that work
together can accomplish a LOT more than 1 monolithic program. ctags
doesn't NEED to worry about editing text, grep doesn't care about
browsing results and 'make' can focus on giving you headaches with
<TAB> :-) (You can use an alternative 'make' such as 'ant' if you like)
Well put.

Would be nice if there were a stand alone debugger that did nothing
but debug PHP, ideally using gdb.. I'll use 'tail -f error_log' before
investing the hours required to use an IDE though. (Been there, done
that, not doing it again)

There are those that'll surely say: "Yea, but you had to write a
couple glue scripts" Well, I'll offer to give them to anyone who'll
give me just 1/2 of what they spent on a commercial PHP IDE, a real
bargain! :-)
The amount of "glue" as you call it is probably equivalent to the
various configuration option settings that many of these larger IDE
style programming environments have. As a programmer myself I'd rather
write a glue script in the same manner as my regular work (i.e.
programming) than to figure out a bunch of check boxes and sliders. And
there's always the fact that if a slider or check box just ain't there
you can't even tweak that (though often you can program it or around it
with a glue type script).
Some will say, "Yea, but you spent hours learning emacs or vim" True,
but, now I can apply the same knowledge when editing any text.

Exactly! Plus your wallet still have money in it!

--
Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.

[NuSphere Customer Service]

> I write my code with phpEd at home, but at work I write it with

ultraEdit (I'm the only one writing php there, having my own project and
my boss went crazy when I showed the 500$ phpEd-license ;). And I just
feel the difference. Coding in phpEd is a lot faster and easier.
Christian, if you're a NuSphere customer and purchased PhpED, you can
opt for an additional PhpED license to use at work. It costs only $50.
And for $495 you actually get at least 2 major versions with 1-3
updates to each, because it is the price of PhpED Advantage (free
upgrades and tech support for 1 year). If you need more details,
please feel free to contact me directly at
ns-feedback_at_nusphere_dot_com. Also, your comments about UltraEdit
seem interesting to me, it would be great if you could share your
ideas about it how to improve PhpED editor with me.

Regards,
Natalie / NuSphere Customer Service

Christian Fersch <Ch******@web.de> wrote in message news:<ch*************@news.t-online.com>... Andrew DeFaria wrote:

I prefer using nusphere phpEd for php and ultraEdit for the rest.

Question: Why not just use ultraEdit for all? IOW what makes PHP special?

I'll tell ya: Php is a lot more complex than the others and for example
I can't remember all the function parameters. In ultraedit this needs me
to select the function name, press my hotkey and so I open a browser
window in which I can see the parameters. But if it's a self-written
function included from another file, I will have to switch to that file
(or maybe open in first) and have to look there for the parameters.
And now the power of phpEd: I don't stop coding a second, just press
shift+ctrl+space and this is what comes up:
http://www.nusphere.com/graphics/phpscreen_4_big.png
(I'm speaking of the tooltip, not code-completing)
It recognizes costum classes and functions included/required from other
files. Simply everything. And it even has support for phpDoc -> If I
documented my function, I will see it in that tooltip.

If I need the name of a database-column, I would have to switch to
phpMyAdmin and look there. In phpEd I have one click and I see my
database structure on the right and I can even drag'n'drop the column
and table names.

I once used only ultraEdit for much worse than a ide missing features
is a totally overloaded ide. But I just found out, that I'm a lot
faster in coding, by using phpEd in addition to UltraEdit.

Then wouldn't you be likewise much faster coding your Perl in a Perl
IDE, your TCL in a TCL IDE, your sh scripts in a SH IDE, etc?

I don't know TCL, but I'm sure I don't need a sh script IDE. That's not
complex enough.
I write my code with phpEd at home, but at work I write it with
ultraEdit (I'm the only one writing php there, having my own project and
my boss went crazy when I showed the 500$ phpEd-license ;). And I just
feel the difference. Coding in phpEd is a lot faster and easier.

So I would propose you to use phpEd for php and pearl

What's pearl? Do you mean Perl? Perl's a language not an IDE.

I know - phpEd also supports Pearl

and ultraEdit for the rest (phpEd is also able to edit html, but for
html you don't need any ide-features, and ultraEdit is just the much
more powerful text-editor).

I prefer XEmacs for editing text of any kind. This includes PHP, Perl,
html, etc.

You should try UltraEdit - I haven't tried XEmacs yet, but it just can't
be as powerful as ultraEdit :)

and no I'm not claiming it makes me a better programmer.

Who would claim such a bullshit?
Even a little child would understand, that it's the result and the used
time that makes a good programmer, not the way the code was written.

Perhaps but quite honestly I don't write a ton of PHP. I've written
some. It's an interesting language and I think it's quite useful and as
such I've incorporated it into my web site. However this is all home
stuff. I don't have a current assignment writing PHP.

Well, if you don't write a lot of php, there is of course no use in
getting used to an special IDE just for that language. That's not worth
the time. But I'm working with it a lot, having written a cms and an
user helpdesk. Getting used to an IDE for a language you don't actually
work with is of course silly and a waste of time.
greetings, Christian