Comments on: Eclipse Everywhere. Buah.

By: Doron B.E.

Doron B.E. — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:17:40 +0000

I dont think that you could even make such comparison between a IDE an a Text editor with some highlightings.
it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to create a full scale (enterprise) projects with a mere text editor...
it would be a very time consuming and frustrating task to build the system and deal with classes.

I have noticed that alot of PHP developers tend to use these text editors... Im quite sure that with the making of OOP more dominant in the past few PHP releases (and the future framework by zend) a "bloated" IDE will become more popular by developers around.

By: Eelco Hillenius

Eelco Hillenius — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 21:56:45 +0000

Yeah, TextMate is nice for editing XML files etc. However Eclipse rocks for anything related to Java development. Besides having a decent debugger, *context sensitive* code completion, javadoc hovers and neat things like quick fixes, Eclipse also has really helpful tools like hierarchy view of classes/ method overrides, call hierarchy, etc. Eclipse is an incredible package of development accelerators.

By: Spajus

Spajus — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:55:21 +0000

I must disagree here. Simple text editors slow down corporate development process. Even language-based code completion is not enough, good IDE must parse custom packages and make you forget function names and concentrate on application structure/flow. Being a PHP developer I must admit that no text editor/IDE gets even a mile close to Zend Studio. I'm happy that Zend is collaborating with Eclipse, this might have a great outcome afterwards.

By: Gonzalo

Gonzalo — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:52:27 +0000

Ed, thanks, I know and I've managed to make it startup faster since that time.

Still, it *runs* fast enough. It's just the startup that takes a bit longer than ideal.

By: Ed Burnette

Ed Burnette — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 23:34:19 +0000

Alexander, you probably downloaded the full Eclipse SDK, which has the whole Java IDE and all the source code and plug-in developer's documentation included. And download size doesn't indicate memory size (given source, doc, etc.). A PHP-only IDE based on Eclipse will be much more lightweight by any measure. While PPC-based Macs are not speed demons (I own one so I should know) I know plenty of people who run Eclipse (the full Java IDE) on it and they seem reasonably happy with it.

Gonzalo, even a fully loaded Eclipse should run way faster on your setup. Feel free to post something over on one of the EclipseZone forums about your setup and experience and somebody should be able to help you find out what's going on.

By: Martin Herzog

Martin Herzog — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 15:53:42 +0000

Don't like java, eh? Well...
I guess they want to create an environment that is well known to other developers. There are already Eclipse plugins/features for Ruby (Ruby Developer Tools [http://rubyeclipse.sourceforge.net/], RadRails for RubyOnRails [http://www.radrails.org/]) and Java web development. If they go for Eclipse, they want to make it easier for developers to switch to PHP.
Plus, there are already very useful plugins like Subclipse for SVN support.

By: Gavin Foster

Gavin Foster — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 12:39:55 +0000

I use Zend Studio Professional. I'm blown away by the latest beta, I even use for db access over MySQL's clients - Eclipse for PHP editing doesn't even *begin* to compare. But Zend are smart and not about to let standards slip.

By: Gonzalo Garcia

Gonzalo Garcia — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 05:41:49 +0000

I was the kind that used SciTE and a bunch of commands to do most everything. It's a simple editor with syntax highlighting and that's about it. But since March I've been 'forced' to use Eclipse on a Java project at work. I didn't like it. Oh, man, this thing takes a full minute or two to start? (on a dual PIV with 2Gb RAM) Still, I had no choice. My opinion now is a bit changed. It takes still too much time starting up, but then again, once started it's not that slow. Maybe not ultra-snappy like my dear old SciTE, but fast enough. More so if you consider that with a handful of plugins you can do everything from inside the IDE, and that does save some time at the end of the day. All of this, on a Java project, of course. I tried both TruStudio and PHPEclipse and... I still prefer SciTE and a bunch of macros. I think for Zend this is a no-brainer move, and for developers it's probably a good thing too. Really, I've never liked Zend Studio. You may not like Eclipse, but worse it's not going to be.

By: Andrei Railean

Andrei Railean — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 02:24:48 +0000

I'll agree with Ian. JEdit is good. I prefer it to EditPlus for many reasons, even though it's a bit slower. Cross-platform availability is one of it's main advantages. I guess that's the reason Zend are going with Eclipse. I've used Zend Studio on and off since verison 2 and see why Zend needs to make this move. Instead of spending the resources developing their own environment and pretty much reinvent the weel that only works for PHP editing, they better focus on imporoving Eclipse. This is a Win-Win situation: Eclipse gets better because of Zend support and Zend gets to focus on PHP more. Plus, Zend Studio plain sucks. The usability suffers because these guys have to think in 3 languages at once: C/C++ for PHP development, PHP - just because, and Java for Zend Studio, then integrate them all and it's still buggy. They'll still have to focus on Java for the eclipse plugin, but they won't have to think of things like "What happens then a user triple-clicks a line?" or "Should newlines be copied when you copy a line?" or "How do we improve SFTP support to handle keys instead of passwords?" - which all have nothing to do with PHP editing. Plus the developers get the benefits of other plugins and Zend won't have to think about CSS syntax parsing, for example.

By: Ian Van Ness

Ian Van Ness — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 19:17:06 +0000

I'm not a huge fan of Eclipse either (I prefer jEdit for its simplicity), but I think one terrific reason to go with a java-based client for their project is cross-platform compatibility. I'm on a Mac here and wouldn't be able to use EditPlus (or any other Windows only editors). Would you have been very happy had they chosen to go with TextMate (a Mac-only editor)? I think that Zend took the compromise on this one and decided to pick a cross-platform editor so that they could focus on getting the framework ready instead of worrying about catering to a single platform.

-Ian