Choosing a code editor

You should choose from various code editors apart from Windows Notepad or vi because chances are you’re soon going to want to graduate to a full-fledged PHP-specific development solution. Several open source and commercial solutions are available like

1. Notepad++

2. Adobe Dreamweaver CS5

3. PDP (PHP Development Tool)

4. Zend Studio (most powerful PHP IDE of all commercial and open source offerings available today)

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5

Adobe’s Dreamweaver CS5 is considered by many to be the ultimate web designer’s toolkit. Intended to be a one-stop application, Dreamweaver CS3 supports all of the key technologies, such as Ajax, CSS, HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and XML, which together drive cutting-edge web sites. In addition to allowing developers to create web pages in WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) fashion, Dreamweaver CS5 offers a number of convenient features for helping PHP developers more effectively write and manage code, including syntax highlighting, code completion, and the ability to easily save and reuse code snippets.

Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 (www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver) is available for the Windows and Mac OS X platforms, and retails for $399.

Notepad++

Notepad++ is a mature open source code editor and avowed Notepad replacement available for the Windows platform. Translated into dozens of languages, Notepad++ offers a wide array of convenient features one would expect of any capable IDE, including the ability to bookmark specific lines of a document for easy reference; syntax, brace, and indentation highlighting; powerful search facilities; macro recording for tedious tasks such as inserting templated comments; and much more. PHP-specific support is fairly slim, with much of the convenience coming from the general features. However, rudimentary support for auto-completion of function names is offered, which will cut down on some typing, although you’re still left to your own devices regarding remembering parameter names and ordering.

Notepad++ is only available for the Windows platform and is released under the GNU GPL. Learn more about it and download it at http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net.

PDT (PHP Development Tools)

The PDT project (www.eclipse.org/pdt) is currently seeing quite a bit of momentum. Backed by Zend Technologies Ltd. (www.zend.com), and built on top of the open source Eclipse platform (www.eclipse.org), a wildly popular extensible framework used for building development tools, PDT is the likely front-runner to become the de facto PHP IDE for hobbyists and professionals alike.

Zend Studio

Zend Studio is far and away the most powerful PHP IDE of all commercial and open source offerings available today. A flagship product of Zend Technologies Ltd., Zend Studio offers all of the features one would expect of an enterprise IDE, including comprehensive code completion, CVS and Subversion integration, internal and remote debugging, code profiling, and convenient code deployment processes. Facilities integrating code with popular databases such as MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, and SQLite are also offered, in addition to the ability to execute SQL queries and view and manage database schemas and data.

Zend Studio (www.zend.com/products/studio) is available for the Windows, Linux, and OS X platforms and retails for $399.