4caster.net

Not a specific post about weather here, but more about programming in general. If you’re like me, then writing code in something like notepad and compiling it at the command line is just too much pain. I prefer using an IDE. This will give you multiple benefits such as…

• Ability to view and manage all your application code from a single place
• Ability to debug and run your code and watch application flow and variables
• A great editor with code completion, error highlighting and more

I do most of my application development in either C# or PHP. In my opinion PHP is better suited to writing web applications which blend code and html. C# is better for writing typical “Windows” applications that run on a users desktop. So here are some helpful ideas for each…

• For C#, you can download a free express edition from the Microsoft Visual Studio site. C# is a very easy language to pickup and there are lots of developer resources around the internet such as Code Project and Code Guru to name just two (note that both of these sites have information for PHP as well). C# comes complete with it’s own very powerful IDE and debugger.
• For PHP, you’re a bit more limited on IDE’s. I really recommend NuSphere’s PHPed. Unfortunately it’s not free but they do have a trial edition. It will give you the ability to write code, access documentation, upload to websites all from a single environment. One of the other key advantages is that you can integrate both PHP4 and PHP5 at the same time and test your application on a variety of web browsers. Like C#, there is a ton of information out there on the internet such as PHPBuilder and of course the excellent PHP homepage.

Hope this short post has helped!