Left on the Web

Zend Studio for Eclipse

Since a few weeks the new generation of the Zend IDE for PHP is available. Instead of the completely Zend-written IDE that there used to be, this one is based on the Eclipse platform, a platform I've never really been a fan of...

I have already tried Zend Studio for Eclipse when it was still called Neon, which was the public beta of this software. I was not impressed. Aside from the fact that it was built on a platform I was far from a fan of, some key features were not yet working, things like code hinting and code completion for included libraries.

So when the stable version came out, I was reluctant to give it another try. Given my bad experiences with Eclipse and the early beta, I postponed it, and actually kept postponing it. But eventually, after some comments from others, I decided to give it a try.

But man, how wrong I was in waiting this long! Sure, there are still some things in the Eclipse platform that I dislike, but overall, everything that I didn't like about the beta was fixed, and the IDE as it stands here right now is not just highly usable, it seems faster and less heavy (which is a new for Eclipse in my experience) than the previous versions of Zend Studio. And it brings some of the great advantages of the Eclipse platform (yes, they are there!) such as the great plugin infrastructure combined with the enormous amount of available plugins. I'm sure there's a few features I don't use as often as others that I haven't encountered yet, so over time my opinion may change, but my first impression is really positive, and I'm quite surprised about that. When they first announced the new version would be based on Eclipse I'd have never thought I'd say this but: I highly recommend Zend Studio for Eclipse as a PHP IDE!

Full disclosure: I am employed by a Zend Partner, but this hardly changes my opinion on things. I still prefer symfony over the Zend Framework and until recently preferred Zend Studio 5.5 over Zend Studio for Eclipse

February 12, 2008 - tags: zend, zend studio, ide, software, eclipse, php

Add comment

Comments

Michelangelo van Dam: I've been using ZS "Neon" since it's first releases as beta-tester and I have to agree that this is the best IDE for developing PHP.

I'm more a Zend Framework developer, so the complete integration of Zend Framework is really convenient for deploying rapid applications. But if I can trust those Java developers, it shouldn't be too dificult to have symphony integrated as well, so you can deploy rapidly symphony apps using your favorite IDE.
February 12, 2008

Bob: After your review I tried the new Zend again, but i'm afraid I really, really don't like Eclipse: Huge, heavy, bulky, slow.

I'm currently trying out Komode IDE, and I think I like it a lot. Depending on how it goes, I'm either migrating to Komodo, or sticking with Zend 5.5.
February 14, 2008

Dan M: I recently downloaded Zend Studio for Eclipse after using ZDE 5.5 for many months. While there are some interesting new features, I am disturbed by the dramatically slower performance. I'm using some pretty high-end hardware for my development work, and ZSfE often noticeably pauses between keystrokes or mouse clicks. At times it can be maddening waiting for it to catch up. I've switched back to ZDE 5.5 a couple of times out of frustration, but I keep thinking I should give ZSfE "one more try" just in case I'm missing something...
July 25, 2008

matt: Totally agree w/ Dan. I've been a faithful 5.5 user for years, and have spent the past 2 months fighting the Eclipse version, trying to convince it not to scan every pear file I include a thousand times, fighting for speed, trying to edit when its doing anything else, etc. I for one AM going back to 5.5.1...I'm sorry I ever left it.
September 30, 2008