A full-featured editing environment
March 05, 2019
A full-featured editing environment
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with PhpStorm
PhpStorm is my software of choice when it comes to working with code, especially when creating and maintaining WordPress plugins, themes, and entire websites. Many editors, such as Sublime Text and Notepad++, require extensive additional configuration with third-party packages in order to provide a reasonable level of functionality – PhpStorm comes with the essential features as part of the software itself, requiring minimal configuration and with the assurance of first-party support. The code indexing feature especially is extremely useful, the most notably absent feature when using an alternative editor.
- The background code indexing is an extremely important asset when coding, catching many common errors and mistakes and connecting the code together in an informative way that makes tracing errors and function calls an absolute breeze.
- The cross-platform support of PhpStorm allows all users within a large team to run the same software regardless of their operating platform.
- The extensive configuration is easy-to-understand while offering a vast range of alternative settings to allow the user to customise their editing experience to what suits them and the current project best.
- PhpStorm includes support for a multitude of plugins, including the very useful Remote Call plugin allowing one-step navigation from runtime errors to the editor.
- Many different languages are supported natively and through plugins, removing the need for other alternative editors.
- The built-in terminal is an excellent timesaver, allowing pre-processing and code management tools to be run right from the editor.
- Lacks support for some of the newer languages, such as PreCSS.
- Rigid project-based structure makes PhpStorm unsuitable for performing quick edits or taking throwaway notes.
- The cost, both financially and in system resources, may be prohibitive for some users.
- Reduced the need to compare other editors and the potential third-party features they provide, by supporting many essential features out-of-the-box requiring very little configuration.
- Made it much easier to catch small errors and inconsistencies in code while writing, reducing the need to debug and track down problems at a later time.
- Improves confidence and connectedness while coding with the code quality analysis and background indexing.
- Sublime Text
- Notepad++
- Atom
In comparison to many other popular code editors, PhpStorm stands out in terms of its fantastic integration of so many high quality and extremely useful features. In particular, the code quality analysis and code navigation features are not available in many other development environments, even with third-party plugins. Having these features integrated into the core software itself reduces the need to search, evaluate, and rely-on third-party solutions when using alternative editors.