specializing in digital media technologies

When I wrote my C++ Programming: Visual QuickStart Guide book back in 2005 (with co-auth0r Andreas Signer), I had to decide what software to recommend for C++ beginners. As with most languages, full-time experienced programmers may like serious, complete tools, or commercial products, but I often find that software on that level can provide too much of a learning curve for someone simultaneously trying to learn a programming language. What I like to recommend in my books is software that’s approachable, reliable, and, preferably, free. So, for the C++ book, I recommend Bloodshed’s Dev-C++ for Windows.

At that time, Dev-C++ was more or less a standard for beginners (and it was free). I used either version 4 or the beta of version 5 for the book and for years readers seemed to be fine with Dev-C++. Now it seems that either Dev-C++ is no more or just not a good enough option. The Dev-C++ Web site is down, although I don’t know yet if the site is down for good. You can still download Dev-++ from Sourceforge, but it’s the five-year old version.

In searching for good alternatives to Dev-C++ (I don’t use Windows regularly, so couldn’t make a recommend on that myself), I came across a post about why you shouldn’t use Dev-C++. That writer recommended Programmer’s Notepad, Code::Blocks (which also runs on Mac OS X and Linux), and the free edition of Microsoft’s Visual Studio.  I haven’t used any of these, so I can’t personally recommend them, although I have used the full version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio (years ago for C# programming in ASP.NET), and can attest to how good it is as an IDE. In the comments to that post, some readers still say that Dev-C++ is so much easier to learn with than the others, so I wouldn’t rule that out entirely.

Yesterday, InfoWorld posted an in-depth review of eight PHP-capable IDE’s. Eclipse with PDT, Netbeans, Zend Studio, NuSphere PhpED, and ActiveState Komodo all get “very good” marks. Of these, Eclipse and Netbeans are free, which is always a bonus. If you’re looking for a new IDE for your PHP development, do read this article.

Personally, I use a text editor for my PHP development (TextMate for Mac OS X). But I have used Eclipse quite a bit, just not for PHP. Eclipse is a standard foundation for lots of IDEs, like Flex Builder/Flash Builder and Aptana Studio. I’ve used Netbeans for Ruby development. Both Netbeans and Eclipse are quite good and extremely extendable, but not as user-friendly as some commercial products, in my opinion. I never really took to Zend Studio, for no particular reason. Maybe the price! I did use NuSphere PhpEd for a while (I did some consulting work for that company) and it seemed to be a very likable solution, but it only runs on Windows, which rules it out for me.

JetBrains just released version 1 of a new Ruby and Ruby on Rails IDE called RubyMine. It features everything you’d expect in an IDE, like code completion, project navigation, HTML/CSS/JS editing, version control software (VCS) support, plus lots of Ruby and Rails-specific features. Version 1.1 of RubyMine is expected in May, with support for version 2.3 of Rails (a significant upgrade). The software is available under two licenses, one (free) for open-source projects and another commercial license ($99 US at the time of this writing).