PHP Development Tools

Infobox Software
name = PHP Development Tools
logo =


caption =
author =
developer = Eclipse Foundation
released =
latest release version = 1.0.3
latest release date = release date|2008|06|10
latest preview version = 1.1
latest preview date = release date|2008|09|15
operating system = Cross-platform
platform =
language =
genre = IDE
license = Eclipse Public License
website = http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/

PHP Development Tools (PDT) is Language IDE plugin for the Eclipse platform.

The project intends to encompass all development components necessary to develop PHP based software.It leverages the existing Eclipse Web Tools Project to provide developers with PHP capabilities.

Key project goals:

* Intuitive and easy to learn
* Seamless integration with the Web Tools project
* Adherence to Eclipse standards
* Extensibility
* Continuous support of PHP developments

Primary modules:
* Core – parser, search algorithm, communication and more
* Debug – protocols, messages, executable and web server
* UI – Editor, views, preferences and wizards

Project Timeline

Early Development

The project was officially started around March 8, 2006. By the end of 2006, the project was approaching the 0.7 release milestone, which is often considered one of the first usable versions of the tool. Throughout the first half of 2007 a series of release candidates for PDT 0.7 were released. On April 6, 2007, 0.7 RC3 was released as the final 0.7 version.

First Release

In the latter half of 2007, a series of 1.0 milestones were reached, and on September 18, 2007, PDT 1.0 Final was released.

Naming Issues

The PHP Development Tools project has gone through a series of name changes throughout its development. It was initially named PHP Development Tools, then changed to PHP IDE, and reverted to PHP Development Tools on January 1, 2007 [ [http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/php-dev/msg00129.html PHP IDE -> PDT] ] . As a result, it is possible to find documentation and reviews that use both names.

Zend Technologies Contributions

One of the interesting issues surrounding PDT is that a good deal of the development is being done by Zend employees. Currently, Zend sells a competing product named Zend Studio. There is much speculation that PDT, as free software, will ultimately cannibalize sales of Zend Studio. Others contend that PDT is deliberately maintained as a "lite" version of Zend Studio [ [http://whitelionsoft.com/blog/2008/04/11/php-for-eclipse-phpeclipse-vs-pdt/ 4/11/08: opinionated blog post on PHP IDE software] ] .

References

External links

* [http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/ PHP Development Tools project page]
* [http://kestas.kuliukas.com/ZendDebugger/ A guide to remote debugging using PDT]
* [http://www.zend.com/en/products/studio/compare/ Zend Studio vs PDT Comparison] at [http://www.zend.com/ zend.com]