IDE

Hi,

I know it's rather late in the course to help any of the guys currently doing this module, but I've found a really nicely laid out IDE called NuSphere PhpEd. Got the intellisense and all the other wonderful goodies you find in VS2008/2010. (www.nusphere.com)

They do have academic pricing available, but I take it this can only be arranged by agreement between nuSphere and UNISA. It might be something that can be looked into and offered to students. (They do have a 14day free trial version which works wonders.)

I have a student license for this - the problem is controlling it. Besides that, I am of the opinion that once learns best by typing it all in a simple text editor, or at least an editor that does not provide snippets of code. An IDE becomes truly useful once you understand the syntax of a language, and once you have enough experience. For these two reasons I decided not to distribute it to ICT students. I may reconsider in future, but then again it has a learning curve which will impede on the focus of the course - basic syntax and logic. Perhaps I must make it available to students who passes ICT3612 with more than 80%

As a side note, I find Dreamweaver's editor the best of the lot, although I dislike Adobe with passion. But that is personal opinion.

mmm, maybe I should have a look at Dreamweaver, havent seen it since very early iterations.

As to the syntax, in my opinion if you don't know it, even having an IDE won't help you. A classic example of this was finding

Language: PHP
 ob_start()......ob_end_clean()

. Took me 2.5 hrs last night to find these tags to sort out errors I was receiving on my login page. And I don't think you're the only one who has an intense dislike for Adobe.

Yes, latest DW really has a good PHP editor.

It can also generate your complete code for you (which I will not mark, because it is not your logic).

lol, don't worry about that. Basically finished with everything except logoff as well as inserting comments against everything. (the real fun part of coding). But will keep DW in mind. might have a look see after the exams when I in theory have a little more time