[ale] Nusphere PHPEd review (rant)

[John Wells]

I've just finished reviewing phped from nusphere and thought I'd post a
review in case any of you are ever in the position of choosing a PHP IDE.

This piece of software has to be the worst $300 ($495 with upgrades and
support) bug-infested clump of 1s and 0s to ever run on my machine.  In
fact, it rendered my Windows 98 box unbootable, and would never fully run,
even after following all directions to a T.  Luckily it was an old box I
kept around and not one of my "production" boxes (course, win98 would
never be on one of my prod boxes).

Nusphere claims to support Linux and Windows 95 thru XP.  Can't verify the
Windows side because of the installation difficulties, but I was able to
install it on Linux.

If you're like me, function comes before form, so I was willing to be
patient with the IDE.  But in all honesty, it's very ugly...not sure what
libraries they're using (I'll check when I get back to work), but for $300
I expected a LOT more.  Popup menus are clipped without borders and don't
expand wide enough (no way to resize), layout is horrible.  It looks like
a school project.

That said, function didn't hold up its end either.  After reading the web
site, I was fully expecting a spectacular development environment with
features I couldn't find anywhere else.  Turns out, it's just another
typical php editor with integrated debugging, autocomplete (that doesn't
always work), and prefab html tag generation in the same vein as Bluefish.

Two features that are rather nice, performance analysis (identifies where
threads spend the most time in your code) and MySql interfacing aren't
working yet.  I'm going to give it one more go on Monday, but I'm not
holding my breath.

I've searched the web and found only positive reviews for PhpEd.  I'm
calling the authors on Monday to find out what they're smoking, where they
got it, and if they could spare a bit.

Nusphere does a good job of marketing, but that appears to be all.

This has got to be the angriest I've ever been made by a piece of software!

Anyway, I'm also looking at Komodo and Zend IDE.  Zend is ahead at this
point, as everything just works and the PHP debugger screams.  Komodo is
pulling a close second due to its multi-language support, but it doesn't
seem to have a function list or class browser...both of which I feel are
necessities to qualify as a full-featured ide.  If anyone out there knows
differently, please let me know.  Zend also seems to be the best value
($195 for a year of support and a free upgrade to 2.6, which will bring in
CVS functionality) compared to Komodo ($300).

John




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