Before going to work with PHP Examples, we shall explore a little knowledge about IDEs Support in PHP and text editors. This part is important for total beginners.
IDEs Support in PHP :
PHP is a scripting language that is used primarily to create dynamic web pages. There are many IDES, both free and paid versions, which can be used for this language.
Since the PHP program needs no compilation, it can be written in the text editors such as Microsoft’s Notepad. However, better features are added in other IDEs such as NetBeans, Sublime Text, Zend Studio, VIM, Atom, or Cloud9.
These feature-rich IDEs are important because they are customized to PHP and helps a developer to reduce syntax errors through their intelligent off-sets and use of tabs.
All of them use colored texts to visually distinguish the different parts of a program, thus making it easier to for developers to notice any kinds of mistakes.
All the above-mentioned IDEs are cross-platform, meaning that they can be used with any operating system.
Sublime Text also has a potable version that can simply be carried along with your flash drive— no need to install it.
PHPStorm, Zend Studio, PHPED, Nusphere, Sublime Text, Cloud 9, and PHP Designer have enterprise support for premium versions.
Features for each PHP IDE :
Net Beans IDE for PHP :
Code templates, getter setter generation, hints and smart code completion, refactoring and quick fixes. Supports frameworks like Doctrine, Zend, Symfony, Smarty, Laravel, CakePHP, Yii, FuelPHP etc.
PHPStorm :
Supports all the frameworks of PHP mentioned above as well as CMSs such as WordPress, magento, and Drupal, etc.
Sublime Text 3 :
It is lightweight and cross-platform. One amazing feature is that you don’t have to install. You can carry it in your flash drive and plug it into any computer, you are ready to go.
Supports packages such as CodeBug, CodeIntel, PHPCS, among others, and is fully-featured.
From my experience, Sublime Text is one of the most powerful IDEs one can use for PHP.
VIM Editor :
It is for those who love working with the Keyboard only. It is a fully fledged development environment for PHP. It is fast, lightweight and modular.
And Finally.,
There are many programming languages for the web, but PHP is one of the most used of all, having been integrated into Digg, WordPress and used for Facebook earlier, before the development of hack.
There are many IDEs support in PHP that can be used for programming. I would recommend Sublime Text for absolute beginners as it is easy to use and toll free. You may also donate to help support its development.
Happy Learning 🙂