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By lancsDavid on
i'm about to embark on some drupal development - including custom module development - & am wondering how hard its gonna be to set up an IDE. (i use a WAMP stack, specifically Wampserver 2.0)
i don't know much about IDE's - other than that big drupal brains seem to use them
i'm not interested in the SVN/CVS aspect of them (though if u've got a compelling argument why i should be pls say), but i am interested in setting up a real-time debugger. preferably one that will step through .module files. though having said this, a lot of posts i've come across have said they haven't been able to configure an IDE to debug .module files - only to debug .php files
anyway, do u think i'm wasting my time trying to setup an IDE for drupal development on windows?? & if not, can you recommend a (relatively) easy approach to doing so
[ pro's, con's & possible how-to's all appreciated ]
david
Comments
If you only want to use an
If you only want to use an IDE because you heard some "big drupal brains" use them, that is a poor reason. Do development with what you are comfortable with. If you can come up with a good reason as to why you want to use it, then there are plenty of lists out there of IDEs available. A discussion I had about them last year on #drupal IRC led to the suggestion of using NetBeans. Personally, I just use Notepad++ when doing Windows development.
If you are developing without using version control (SVN/CVS) then you might as well stop right now and choose a different line of work. Seriously, there is no compelling argument not to be using version control, and if you are doing module development to put on drupal.org then you will have to use CVS (at least for a while until the switch to Git is complete).
TortoiseSVN and TortoiseCVS are both available for free on Windows and most editors and IDEs have plugins available to version control your code.
The only really compelling
The only really compelling reason I can see to not use svn is not knowing how to use it (which is a pretty compelling reason!). As far as it goes, learning to set up and use svn was the single biggest step I made in the last few years as far as improving my workflow. It's sped things up as well as saved me hours of troubles that I used to have when dealing with ftp (accidentally overwriting the wrong file, uploading to the wrong directory, forgetting to upload a particular file etc).
I unfortunately don't have any suggestions for IDEs. I just use Dreamweaver, and debug my own code. Someday I'd like to try out a step-through debugger just to see how they work, but as I've never really had a pressing need for it I've never gotten around to trying one out.
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still need answers
dude, i was joking about the 'brains' thing (just my way of trying not to sound like an egghead)
as to Version Control, i got the impression that configuring the CVS aspect of an IDE was troublesome. i mean, i've read posts where people said they'd set up their IDE but couldn't get the CVS side of it working. which - as i don't plan on submitting my modules to drupal.org anyway - made me think i'd just save myself the time & trouble of bothering with CVS
( this being my compelling reason for not bothering with version control on this project )
debugging is actually what i need, as i said. a real-time debugger that'll let me step through code in both .module files as well as .php files
the thing is, i've read that setting up an IDE / debugger (for drupal) on a windows system is tricky. doubly tricky if you want it to debug .module files (rather than just .php files)
in fact, i haven't come across any tutorial or 'how-to' guide for the situation i'm outlining, & i've spent quite a bit of time looking
so, if anyone can let me know whether i'm on a wild goose chase i'd appreciate it
_
The ones I know of are at:
http://drupal.org/search/apachesolr_search/windows+debug?filters=type:book
You can also check on http://drupal.org/irc -- lots of hardcore drupal devs can be found there.
Debuggers do exist. The
Debuggers do exist. The de-facto standard is to use Xdebug. There is also a firefox plugin to switch Xdebug on/off once you have it set up.
That said, getting XDebug set up properly is non-trivial. It took me 2 or 3 days to figure it out if I recall. If you want to give it a go, take a look at:
http://robshouse.net/article/xdebug-komodo-and-acquia-drupal-stack-insta... if you are on Mac
http://echodittolabs.org/drupal-xdebug-pdt-eclipse if you are on Windows
Komodo IDE.
Komodo IDE.