[consulting] Drupal Development Tools

[Khalid B]

> What do you use to develop Drupal? Have you got any tools that you have
> developed to make life easier for you ? Is anyone looking at building any
> kind of developer toolkit?

Over the last few weeks, I started to look at IDEs that can do PHP, and using
them for Drupal development.

More specifically, I am interested in what a "normal" PHP IDE would do, plus
the specific requirement of remote debugging. By remote debugging I mean
that Drupal will still be on a LAMP server, but I can debug it from my desktop's
IDE.

Gubed is a PHP "library" for debugging, but it is very slow. Not a viable option
for me.

Remote debugging for PHP is available in two flavors, each supported by by
a rival IDE. DBG for Nusphere's PHPEd, and xdebug/DBGp for Activstate's
Komodo.

I tried to make Eclipse work with DBG remotely, but it is very limited. Komodo
is not working for me so far, perhaps because I am using an older xdebug (1.3.2
I think), and do not want to upgrade the server at present.

I also tried Maguma Open Studio, which is Open Source, but there is no active
development on it anymore.

PHPEd is a complete success: remote debugging works very well with it, and
it is a very capable IDE. Multi user remote debugging using PHPEd/DBG works
out of the box, so me and my partner can work on the same server debugging
different things. There is no need to run a debugging proxy listener like
Komodo/Xdebug requires.

PHPEd comes with seamlessly bundled PHP4 and PHP5, as well as a database
client/admin (MySQL and lots of others). It also has a terminal
interface. I have
not used those yet.

PHPEd version 4.5 is Windows only at present, and there is a 3.x Linux
version (sorry
MacOS/X fans, I know there are lots of you out there). It is also
pricier than Komodo
($299 minimum price vs $29.95 for a Komodo personal edition).

When I upgrade my Linux server, I may give Komodo remote debugging another try.

Non of the above is Drupal specific, but will be useful for anyone doing Drupal.

I will probably be writing a report to my blog some time in the future
with details
on how I configured the server and PHPEd.

> How many people develop with Eclipse and has anyone looked into what would
> be required to develop "EclipsePal" ? Templates, Libraries, packaging, Unit
> tests, Code style could all be set up nicely. I have not yet begun any
> investigations into what is involved but it is on my todolist. (If anyone
> has any tips on SVN and Ant for packaging on a windows box I'd appreciate
> the chance to get some advice)

If anyone has success with remote debugging with PHP Eclipse, let us all know.