[Tech] What IDE do you use?

[Haven]

This is something I've spent a lot of time looking into particulary for PHP and Python development. I'm not restricting this to platform as I use both windows and linux although my brain automatically goes into linux mode when I code so thats where I'll spend most of my time I think.

So what do you code in and why? Also is there anything out there that you feel is a must have in an IDE (i.e. inline debugging, code completion, git integrtaion ... etc).

Personally for PHP I do keep coming back to Dreamweaver, when in linux I'll often just stick with VIM but if Dreamwever worked on linux (not tried it under wine yet tbh) then that would provide most of what I need.

Things I like about dreamweaver are the split code view where you can double check your css/html settings and also remind yourself quickly and easily any function keywords you may have forgotten. I'd like to start using it with git or subversion but I've never needed to before now so I've not yet tried (I have bad habbits with code storage ).

An alternative that I do keep thinking of trying is Eclipse with php addons. Has anyone else been and done this and how did you find things?

Python I'm just starting out with, so far only tried the built in IDE and VIM once again (the old stalwart). Definately looking for good experiences here if anyone codes in it ...

 

[thatbloke]

At work I use an IDE called Ultraedit. It's not free, but it has both Windows and Linux versions, and can be portableapps compatible too. Currently we don't use the studio version, we just just the editor alone, but we are looking at moving to the studio version for us software developers in the near future for some of us.

I find it very useful. It has an absolute shit-ton of features that you don't realise are useful until you start using them... things like setting up a template that I can press a key combo with and instantly insert the 4 lines of code I need into my main software to add in a line of debug.

Code syntax/highlighting is provided by use of its wordfile. This is a fully customisable file that you can add/subtract whatever languages you like, including custom ones (we use a custom scripting language here so it's dead handy) simply by editing one file. I believe there are a number of different language templates for this available on their forums.

I know it also has a number of features for web editing but I've never really explored them, so I can't say if they are any good or not. I know it has a "HTML View" option in there somewhere though... you can split the window and have the two there active.

It also has integration with a few useful tools such as ctags, xmlint...

Also you can create a project file for something you are working on, such that all the folders of that project show up in a handy list and when you close the project every single file you have open and the cursor position in each is restored when you re-open the project file.

There's a ton of other stuff in it, you may find it useful to try out the free trial. It also has a massive feature list

 

[Wol]

I've just started using Eclipse and its just..... nasty. Seems counter-intuitive for a lot of the whole "project" "workspace" malarkey. Am only using it for Java-Android development though as its one of the few tools that has the DDMS and AVD for my phone. I think ill slowly get the hang of it soon though.

I used to use dreamweaver as a glorified notepad. Never really used the wysiwyg part of it, as I just used the web developer toolbar in firefox for most checking. These days I just use notepad++ or nano! Notepad++ is quite good though in my opinion. Has lots of little text manipulation tools and stuff in it that I find handy, and does have a bunch of plugins too.

For most standard code stuff, so c# and c++, I'll use visual studio. Its just what I'm most used to. I installed some plugin for SVN into visual studio, but havent really used it much. I'm happy to just use windows explorer/terminal to do the SVN co and up. One nice thing about dreamweaver though is that it automatically does FTP stuff. So i can edit a file away from the server, hit control-s and itll automatically upload to the server. Most of the time these days I've got easy enough access to the server (SSH) so just do it in a terminal.

What do I like in an IDE? Autocompletion is a *must*. It has to appreciate tabs, and be able to autoformat stuff correctly. the main editor can't look too fussy. VS does this well in my opinion, Eclipse is a little bit more cluttered though. I don't care much for code snippets really. Never used the giant list of them in Dreamweaver before and am not going to start now! Inline debugging is handy, but I never use it with PHP even though there are some things out there.

theres a few thoughts anyway!

 

[BiG D]

For PHP/HTML/Javascript/etc. I use TextPad. Nothing fancy, does what I want.
Any .NET stuff, of course, is done in visual studio.
When I'm messing around with WebOS, I use eclipse (which I rather like.)

 

[Zooggy]

Ahey,

For PHP/HTML/Javascript/etc. I use TextPad. Nothing fancy, does what I want.
Any .NET stuff, of course, is done in visual studio.

This man is my twin brother and I love him dearly!

When I'm messing around with WebOS, I use eclipse (which I rather like.)

Oh, wait, never mind... My mistake...



But yeah, I use Visual Studio when I can, Textpad when I can't, and Eclipse when I'm absolutely, positively forced to work with Java.

Java itself is a pain, but Eclipse is just moronic. The only reason I use it is that it's the only Java IDE I know of, and I clearly can't be bothered to go look for others...

Cheers,
J.

 

[BiG D]

The thing is that, for whatever reason, eclipse seems to be the #1 choice for plugins that work well. It can automatically generate a new webOS project, and then load it up in the emulator or on the phone itself with a single click. That's all I need it for. All the other shit gets turned off

When I'm working on Java *spit* I actually use Textpad.

 

[Wol]

Has anyone else used notepad++ here? I'm hearing a lot of mentions of Textpad.

Wondering if anyone can give a good comparison.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Not me. I'm pretty much in with D and Zooggy here.

Textpad or vim for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP, depending on platform. Visual Studio 2008 for C#.

I have an icon for Eclipse on my desktop. Was intending to use it for Python. It's been there for about 18 months unused...

That said, neither Textpad nor vim could really be called an IDE...

 

[Wol]

As far as I can tell, textpad is pretty damn similar to notepad++. Think the main difference I've seen is that notepad++ is free, and textpad you have to pay for! I'd rather have the free one myself!

What do you consider an IDE though. For normal programming, I'd treat it as the whole package of editor, compiler, debugger, so visual studio / eclipse. But then Dreamweaver is just an editor, as the languages it uses aren't compiled, so what makes it different from any other text editor?

Ignore the "integrated" bit, or treat it as being integrated nicely with files, projects, and file structure, rather than with a compiler/debugger, and then you can go into the "text editor" land as being a development environment.

 

[Ronin Storm]

and textpad you have to pay for!

You can permanently run Textpad in evaluation mode. It's fully featured just once every so often it pops up a message reminding you that it's an evaluation version. I think I see that once per session. In that regard, it's free except if you consider your evaluation over...

What do you consider an IDE though.

The integrated part of an IDE is really a big part of the point, I feel.

Dreamweaver offers an in-environment view of the page you're building with debugging, auto-complete, project folder stuff, etc. I'd say it was an IDE for web page production.

Visual Studio can do the same basic thing as Dreamweaver, just costs twice as much IIRC. Oh, and it does C#, ASP.NET, etc too...

Textpad, however, is just an editor. To check the results of a change you need to go to some other application. There's no understanding in Textpad of what you're doing; if you do it wrong, then its entirely your fault. Dreamweaver, Visual Studio and other IDEs actually have some sense of what you're doing and so can help you (to a greater or lesser extent).

 

[VibroAxe]

We have textpad installed on the work machines, and I have to say that I really don't like it. But with further analysis I think this is more to do with the fact that it's almost identical to notepad++ which annoyed me. It almost did everything I wanted it too in a way I recognised, but never quite made it, which annoyed me. Having thought about this though, if i'd stuck with it I think I probably could have learned to use it...

Suffice to say Notepad++ Portable Apps Edition ftw!

 

[thatbloke]

While certainly NOT free, Ultraedit, the one I mentioned, is certainly worth checking out, as it can do pretty much anything.

I use just the editor version, but there is a studio version of it too that has even more integrated features for programming and can be set up to use pretty much any compiler out there.

Both versions also have web development features that allow you to see the rendered HTML in the IDE in a separate window.

Again, not free, but in my opinion, worth the money as tbh you don't need anything else.

 

[Haven]

Thanks for the responses folks, what I'm getting out of this is a certain lack of diversity in the IDE world, at least amongst THN devs Good to know though that the attention is all focussed amongst a very small number of apps.

 

[Wol]

You can permanently run Textpad in evaluation mode. [snip] In that regard, it's free except if you consider your evaluation over...

Surely your can't consider that your evaluation is still going by the time you've got to a point where youre supporting it on a forum saying "Textpad is good, and I use it"....

.... or is it just another piece of software being added to the list of "endless 'evaluation' " becuase people don't want to pay for it? And if anyone asks, that mp3 I downloaded last week, I like it, and listen to it loads, but I'm still 'evaluating' it before I decide I like it ;-) ( and if people wish to go off topic and argue this point, I'm not going to bother replying )

Comparing Notepad++ to Dreamweaver, N++ has autocompletion, folder views, FTP uploads, the main thing it doesnt have is a WYSIWYG HTML renderer, but instead has two predefined shortcuts which come with the program to load the current page in an actual browser like IE or firefox, which dreamweaver also has as far as I remember.

I guess I'm sort of biased as I dont think I've ever really used the WYSIWYG thing properly in dreamweaver, so don't consider it an integral part of its "IDE". I've always said that if ever I use dreamweaver, its as a glorified notepad! For interactively editing a webpage, I daren't use it, cos the times I have used it, it ends up putting shonk all over the page, and I find it easier typing it from scratch. If i want to view a webpage im writing, I may as well render it in firefox/IE as theyre the actual end browsers that people will be using, and also I'm usually writing server side stuff, so by that point, I can't view it directly in dreamweaver as it has to go through IIS / Apache first, otherwise I get a page with lots of little "<%" pictures which I never find that helpful.

I didn't realise that Dreamweaver had "debugging" though. Is this something ive just completely missed or do you mean stuff like syntax checking rather than the ability to debug actual code?

What about a language that doesn't have a visual element then, for example, I'm writing a javascript file, and Dreamweaver only shows me a code view. In that sense, Dreamweaver is doing pretty much the same as Notepad++ can. Is dreamweaver still an IDE in that sense? Or has it just an editor?


Meh. Tis my thoughts anyway!

 

[Haven]

I've been using text pad for eight years without paying for it - like ronin says other than the occassional annoying pop up box its essentially free.

As for dreamweaver, I write code by hand and then preview in split view. Thats different from the drag and drop methods that you can use should you choose. Essentially it supports text entry with code preview which is a way of working that suits me.

 

[Ronin Storm]

I dont think I've ever really used the WYSIWYG thing properly in dreamweaver, so don't consider it an integral part of its "IDE".

In that, I would agree. I believe the whole WYSIWYG business is actually about being a visual editor (hence Visual Studio, Visual C#, etc) rather than an IDE per se.

I didn't realise that Dreamweaver had "debugging" though. Is this something ive just completely missed or do you mean stuff like syntax checking rather than the ability to debug actual code?

I've not looked at Dreamweaver seriously for years (for exactly the same reasons you quote for it being nasty about introducing stuff I didn't ask for in my markup) but I have a memory of more recent versions introducing more in the way of validation and so on. I guess mark-up really isn't a great comparison to compiled languages, though (whether JIT or pre-compiled).

Sounds like Notepad++ does quite a bit more than Textpad, though, so it smells like it's working its way towards being an IDE.

Really, my criteria for an idea boil down to:

• Auto-complete in my language of choice, preferably aware of scope/etc for local variable completion as well
• Context/language sensitive help
• Live debugging including both trace, call stack and preferably something analogous to VS's "Immediate" window
• File groups (e.g. projects, folders, etc)
• Management of all lower level compilation functions, such as collation of errors/warnings, running all appropriate compilers/linkers, etc

I may have missed something, but I use those features every day and I wouldn't write C# without them.