My new position in a new company is a created position. I got a new computer, and I’ve only at the end of my second week had code to begin looking at. I’m starting into week three now, and being expected to let them know what I need as far as software; since it’s a new position I can basically have what I want/need.
I’ll be working almost exclusively on a single Drupal 7 platform for the forseeable future.
I’ve always used Sublime Text 3 (2 before that, and then before that, Notepad++). I’ve used Netbeans but never really had much vested interest in it. Also never used PHPStorm.
I’ve been researching both on Sitepoint and the Internet at large for assistance, but does anyone have any legitimate reasons to use an IDE like PHPStorm, if I’m not used to it? Or any legitimate reasons not to? I’m thinking about doing so, I’m just not sure of a succinct way to think about the benefits. I am well aware that IDEs in general, and PHPStorm in specific, have a whole slew of extra benefits that even a souped up editor won’t; but the question is if I’ll ever stop and learn to use them, or if they’re worth taking the time to learn for a single project position.
Also if anyone has any tips on using Sublime with Drupal - any fun plugins or the like that I might not have heard of - that’s also appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
PS - I’d prefer this wasn’t a giant debate topic on IDE v Editor or IDE v IDE - I just would like some advice for my specific situation, a single project that is middling size now and expected to grow, with a single developer (liasoning with original development team right now, but expecting to sever that in the next year or two).
I use IntelliJ, and I love it. It fits me. It organizes things in places I’d expect to find them, has a slew of plugins for various techs that I use and just works. I’ve tried many others in the past with little success. I didn’t care for Sublime Text (used it when it was version 2) nor Komodo IDE. PHPStorm was awesome as well, but I eventually needed Ruby and Python support, so going to IntelliJ suited me better.
JetBrains has a great support system. When I was still using PHPStorm, I had just renewed my license and up came a few projects that needed Ruby and Python. I contacted support and they have me a nice discount to move to IntelliJ. I couldn’t have been happier.
The things I’d start to do is make a list of what you need it to do (work you do now). Syntax Highlighting, Auto Completion, Search in Files, Search in Project, etc. List it all. Next make a list of things you would like to do some day. XDebug, Profiler, Code Coverage, etc. Then Trial each one and go through that list and check off the items each one covers and covers to your liking!
Of course, the biggest factor needs to be that it works for you. The one thing you will never get past is opening up a piece of software you just absolutely hate to use because it doesn’t fit you personally. You can’t easily overcome that, and that will definitely put a strife on your work.
I like the fact that JetBrains has that family of similar IDE products. They even have .NET offerings (which I know nothing about) in case my company eventually corrupts me into .NET (it’s a .NET house, and 10y from now if my project still exists, it’ll almost assuredly have been rebuilt in .NET, as it’s an acquisition that is PHP just… because it already was).
Anyway, it’d be similar support and possibly some environment features, for whatever that’s worth. It seems like extensions of VS? Anyway, irrelevant.
Yes, JetBrains primarily does Extensions for Visual Studio, and they do them well. I’d also state that their IDEs are very similar to Visual Studio (which I love).We use Visual Studio at work, as we’re a .NET shop and we have several JetBrains products that we use in Visual Studio. Resharper, for one, it is just unbelievable and pretty much as zero competition.
I’ve used dotPeek in the past, but have been using ILSpy more often (simply because it existed before dotPeek came out). I rarely have to use it though (just don’t have the need to decompile other .NET projects very often).
So yes, I like to think that PHPStorm and even IntelliJ have similar UIs to Visual Studio. There are differences (menu locations, settings, etc), but when it comes to how projects are created, files viewed, writing your code, there is a lot of similarities.
I started with Notepad++ in the very early days, briefly touched on Sublime, then used Zend Studio for a couple of years. Then I tried Netbeans and moving away from Eclipse (Zend Studio) was like being born again. Then Oracle took over Netbeans and I decided to try PhpStorm. The latter two had almost identical features, but PhpStorm’s active involvement in the community, their premium support if something goes wrong, and their epic speed of development are what kept me as their customer. Of course, it being slightly faster than Netbeans at the time (3 or so years ago) was also a plus.
I would recommend PhpStorm. If your employers ever decide they want you to switch language / environment, they’ll buy another context specific IDE. Better to be specific than to go with something as heavy as IntelliJ right now, if you’re not dealing with multiple languages at once from the get-go. Besides, JetBrains cover most popular languages rather well, so you’ll already be accustomed to the IDE’s environment and keyboard shortcuts.
Plus, there’s this. So yours is a context they actually care about.
Plus, there’s this. So yours is a context they actually care about.
Ooo… I’d not even seen this somehow, even after a couple of articles about Drupal development in PHPStorm. Definitely a good resource. And definitely a good selling point that they’re at least vested enough to provide specific support for the platform (and I’m sure quite a few others, too).
I had forgotten they had Drupal Support via a Module. Glad you remembered!
And yes, IntelliJ is very heavy in comparison to PHPStorm. The way you create a project completely changes, along with how they are opened. It took me a while to get used to it, but I’m still happy with the change since I need to do more Ruby/PHP/Python than what I ever did before.
I don’t have any comments on PHPStorm specifically, but IntelliJ is pretty much the only other IDE out there on the same level as Visual Studio. Netbeans and Eclipse don’t even compare.
I am in the same situation – single developer, working on a mid-sized project with existing code.
I used to use PSPad, which is very similar to Notepad++. I always hated to use different development environments because I was so familiar with what I already had, I didn’t think I would enjoy any of the listed features of something more “fancy.” I tried Sublime… for about 15 minutes. It was too different, I felt that it would take more time to know what was going on than was worth it, because meanwhile I have code to write and deadlines to meet.
A co-worker talked me into trying PHPStorm, and I was pretty quickly convinced. I’ve been using PHPStorm for about 6 months, and I still discover little features that I like. For me, the nicest thing is the git integration, I don’t care for command-line git (but that’s all I had available), having it integrated and available in context menus saves me a surprising amount of time. The code-completion wasn’t something I expected to like, but it does a great job scanning my project, it helps me find namespace or classname typos and other such errors, and it saves me having to go dig up a class just to remind myself about that third optional parameter on a utility function.
All told, I’m very satisfied with the switch, and the few hours it took for me to get comfortable in the new environment were well worth the time saved later.
The git integration is a feature I’m interested in too, as for the next year or so I’ll be committing to a branch of an existing repo where other people will QA and then merge my stuff; and after that I’ll be setting up my own Git environment with my own branching, so either way it’s useful.
Just tinkering around I’ve also found the default completion and things to be useful out the gate as opposed to my long tinkering with Sublime’s, which is surprising. And the little things like the marking unused variables, etc…
The Git integration sucks in comparison to what you would get using SourceTree but PHPStorm is by far the editor of choice – especially for Drupal development considering the integrations available. I was slow to conform to but will never look back only down on those who haven’t seen the light.
Yeah, that’s a great way to put it: the advantages of Sublime are real, but it takes time to know the program well enough to avail yourself of those advantages. PHPStorm’s advantages are quickly apparent, it feels worth investing more time because 15 minutes in and it is already helping.
Love the unused variable marking, code bookmarks, and spell check on variable names. Finding $introdcution vs $introduction (first is misspelled) might have taken a while in PSPad, immediately obvious in PHPStorm.
We use BitBucket, so I also have SourceTree. I’ve had to open it one time, PHPStorm was being weird about a couple of files. So it isn’t flawless, but still good.
