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Development tools
Although PHP can be edited with text editors such as Notepad, the use of a powerful Integrated Development Environment (IDE) can greatly speed development. Thanks to PHP's popularity, many IDEs are available. Table 4-1 can help you choose the right tool for your needs.
Table 4-1 List of popular PHP development environments
Many more can be found at the following site:
http://www.php-editors.com/review/
There you can find reviews of both commercial and free IDEs as well as editors and feedback by actual users of the products.
Zend Studio for i5/OS
Zend Studio for i5/OS (Figure 4-7) is the default development environment for Zend Core. It comes with an integrated debugger, CVS/SVN, and FTP support.
Figure 4-7 Zend Development Environment: Zend Studio for i5/OS
Zend Studio for i5/OS is available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms. Zend Studio for i5/OS is free for customers who downloaded Zend Core for i5/OS, and it is a solid choice for PHP development. Zend Studio for i5/OS can be downloaded from Zend's Web site:
https://www.zend.com/core/oem_registration.php?access_code=IBMi5OSZend
For more information you can visit the following Web address:
http://www.zend.com/products/zend_core/zend_for_i5_os
Eclipse
Eclipse is based on an open and extensible platform written in Java. Although Eclipse was originally used almost exclusively for Java development, there are a number of good PHP plug-ins that extend Eclipse to support PHP. Eclipse is available for various platforms including Windows and Linux. Figure 4-8 shows Eclipse with the PHPeclipse plug-in.
Figure 4-8 Eclipse with PHPeclipse plug-in
There are commercial and free Eclipse plug-ins to support PHP. One of the most popular free PHP plug-ins is PHPeclipse, which can be downloaded from:
http://phpeclipse.de/
One of the most popular commercial PHP plug-ins is TruStudio. There is also a free version of TruStudio. You can find out more about TruStudio at:
http://www.xored.com/trustudio
NuSphere PhpED
NuSphere PhpED (Figure 4-9) is a robust PHP integrated development environment.
Figure 4-9 NuSphere PhpED
NuSphere PhpED is available only for the Windows platform. An evaluation version can be downloaded from the following Web site:
http://www.nusphere.com/download.php.ide.htm
Maguma
Maguma has different versions of their IDE for PHP. There is a free version (Maguma Open Studio, shown in Figure 4-10) as well as a commercial version (Maguma Workbench).
Figure 4-10 Maguma Open Studio
Maguma products are available for Windows and Linux. They can be downloaded from:
http://www.maguma.com/en/download.html
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