Thoughts about IDEs, editors and related

As I convert websites into HTML as my job, do server-side programming in PHP and client-side programming in JavaScript etc., I've used many programs to ease the process.

At first I used notepad. I think most people start with notepad, and even some more experienced people use it. In my opinion, a basic editor like notepad is good for quick and dirty work, but it's nowhere near proper IDE's in terms of efficiency. Using a proper IDE also makes for better code, as the editor itself can, for example, auto-complete the ending tags in HTML.

After the notepad-phase I started using Ultra-Edit. Ultra-Edit is in my opinion the best text editor around for any kind of programming. It has lots of useful features, a hex editor, built-in FTP support etc. but it still lacks the features in editors made for more specific tasks like Dreamweaver, Visual Studio or Zend Studio. I still have it somewhere, although I very rarely use it anymore.


Adobe (former Macromedia) Dreamweaver is the industry standard in webdesign. It's also my weapon of choice for developing webpages.
For those of you who still think a WYSIWYG editor creates cluttered and horrible code ála Frontpage, welcome to 2006: Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG features create state-of-the-art HTML and CSS based layouts which validate with W3C's HTML and CSS validators.

The code editor in Dreamweaver is probably the best for coding webpages. It has autocompletion and pop-up lists for HTML, HTML tag attributes and CSS attributes etc. You can check the codes validity on the fly from the editor, check for possible compatibility errors in different browsers (eg. Netscape 3, Netscape 4, IE 6 etc.)...
The built-in CSS editor is also a great aid in quickly creating CSS styles. Although it might not always write the most compact CSS possible, you can easily check and fix this yourself.

Even though Dreamweaver is full of these advanced features, I still like to write code by hand. I use the WYSIWYG view too, though. I use it to see how does the site look. It's also very handy for laying out complex tables if you need to arrange tabular data.

The site-features are also excellent. I can create a site on my own computer and have the editor automatically update the files on a remote server. This is especially useful if I'm writing PHP in Dreamweaver, as I like to keep backups on my own hard disk too.
I probably don't need to mention this, but Dreamweaver can also work on remote files without making copies on the local machine.

There's also a HTML reference, a CSS referece, a JavaScript reference... all searchable, right in the editor.



Zend Studio is my primary tool for developing PHP applications. There's one feature here, what you won't find in any other program: local and remote debugging for PHP. No more stupid if($foo == "bar") { do something } debugging code. You can see the state of the variables right from the debugger, add breakpoints to stop execution at certain parts, run one line at a time and all the other features found in debuggers like the one in Visual Studio.

Other things worth mentioning is code profiling and checking. The IDE can check for typical problems, security holes etc. in your code. Has also some kind of support for HTML tag auto completion and such but I haven't really looked into that. Like I said, Dreamweaver for HTML, Zend for PHP :)



Now.. something I'd so dearly want...
an editor/IDE which combines ALL the best features from Dreamweaver, Zend and Visual Studio. The excellent HTML/CSS and overall features from Dreamweaver. PHP debugging and completion from Zend Studio, the simply excellent code-editor from Visual Studio. And throw in a JavaScript debugger.


Oh well. That won't probably ever happen unless Zend, Adobe and Microsoft fusion... which might not be a good thing. Microsoft Vistaloper Studio for web-design 2xxx Enterprise Edition? Guh..

Obviously, as I don't know everything, I don't either have an idea if there are better alternatives out there... so... link me if your opinion differs.

Zend
Adobe
Ultra-Edit