Comparison of seven popular PHP integrated development tools (IDE)

This article explores all the purposes of the integrated development environment (IDE) and compares the costs and advantages of seven popular IDEs. Writing a series of articles on php (as the mainstream development language) gives me a deeper understanding of the world of php (as the mainstream development language) developers. Me and many php (as the mainstream SyntaxHighlighter. all ()

This article explores all the purposes of the integrated development environment (IDE) and compares the costs and advantages of seven popular IDEs.

Writing a series of articles on php (as the mainstream development language) gives me a deeper understanding of the world of php (as the mainstream development language) developers. I have talked to many php programmers (as the mainstream development language). The most surprising thing is that only a few people use IDE. Most programmers use text editors, such as Notepad, Emacs, or Vim on Microsoft Windows.

The text editors I mentioned (and I didn't mention) are all good-I don't want to discuss which editor is better. However, I want to emphasize that the absence of a text editor will give you a deeper insight into php (as a mainstream development language) code. Almost everyone regards php (as the mainstream development language) projects as just file directories (this is a one-sided view ). Now let me take you into the world of IDE, show you what IDE can -- or should -- bring to you, and introduce you to the seven most popular IDEs.

What is IDE?

In short, IDE provides an all-in-one service for coding. IDE includes an editor that allows you to edit code, debug code, view code in a browser (usually embedded), and check in and out source code control. To support these features, IDE has a set of features that are not found in basic editors (such as Notepad or Vim. Of course, you can use the extended editor to implement these functions, but IDE includes all of these functions in a streamlined package-all of which are pre-configured:

Project

A key feature of IDE is that it regards a php (as a mainstream development language) application as a project, not just a group of files. This concept-project-maintains additional information, such as source code control configuration, database settings for debugging, and the location of a key Directory.

Debugging

Another convenient feature is integration debugging. With this function, you can set breakpoints in the editor. When php (as the mainstream development language) interprets programs to execute this script, it will stop. From the breakpoint, you can check the value of the local variable and diagnose the problem in the code. You can use the echo statement in the code to check the value or use the error log to obtain the value of the variable.

Code intelligence

Php (as the mainstream development language) is a very regular programming language, which means it follows a simple mode. These modes not only make the code easy to write, but also make it easy for the IDE to check the code in the project. In addition, they can help you write programs by displaying the check results. For example, if a class named MyClass is defined in the project, when you type the keyword new, IDE immediately provides a pop-up window that includes MyClass as an option. When you use an object of that type, IDE displays its available methods and instance variables. When you start typing a function command, IDE displays its available parameters. To be fair, this is the primary reason for using IDE rather than text editors. This code intelligence can effectively reduce the number of incorrect class names, method names, and parameters.

Class View

Another function of the code intelligence engine in IDE is that IDE can generate the class view of projects. Instead of displaying files, the system displays different classes that have been defined, regardless of their files. When you click a class, the editor accesses the corresponding file and displays the corresponding class, method, or instance variable. This is a good navigation method in large projects.

Multi-language support

Each IDE mentioned here supports not only php (as the mainstream development Language), but also related Language sets: JavaScript, Structured Query Language (SQL), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS ). Because HTML and CSS are relatively simple, IDE provides the best support for them. The support for JavaScript often highlights the syntax, but the support is better than not.

Source Code Control

All the Ides evaluated here support some connections to the source code control system, allowing you to maintain the file version in the project over time. You can mark the special version of the file as the release version, so that it can be restored when changes need to be revoked. It is critical to use the source code control system in a team environment, even for personal use. When the disk crashes or the customer suddenly wants the previous version instead of the current version, a good source code control system can play a role. Most IDEs support Concurrent Version System (CVS) and Subversion, which are both open-source control systems. One IDE supports Perforce, a commercial source code control system.

FTP/SFTP integration