Pro Developer tested NetBEans 6.5 Beta

Today I installed NetBeans 6.5 Beta, after many years using Zend IDE for PHP development. I download NetBeand with PHP pack only. NetBeans 6.5 start up was much faster than Zend, and working with NetBeans was very smootly. Both IDE’s running under Java platform, but Zend is lazy in comparation with NetBeans IDE.

NetBeans is open source, free and you can download NetBeans pack you need. If you developing only php then you don’t need Java or Ruby pack. But if sometimes you want to extend NetBeans, you don’t need to download new package, just extend it with plugins. I might extend my NetBeans with UML pack, because i want to create UML diagrams when analyzing projects.

What i liked the most?
NetBeans have support for Version Control and developer collaboration. You don’t want that your team member overlap someone else codes, do you? You can choose between CVS, Subversion, or Mercurial subversion control systems, i using CVS. You can connect on CVS with pserver, ext, local and fork authentication protocols.

Line based diff viewer wil show you new, changed and removed code lines. You can compare two files, file from repository and your local file side by side.

You can see local history, and roll back into older file version any time if needed. All changes are saved into file history while you developing.

I need to try Developer collaboration plugin. It offer NetBeans project sharing over network in real time. And all parties can debug, and make remote changes on project if project owner allow them. Also all project members can chat over this plugin. I think this is very powerful, and this will be main reason to use this IDE in future, and leave Zend behind.

NetBeans 6.1 didn’t have full PHP support is was Early Access for PHP, but in 6.5 version they have full PHP support. Now we can debug php application in NetBeans IDE.

To debug PHP application in NetBeans we need:

• NetBeans 6.5 Beta with PHP pack
• PHP 5 engine
• Apache Server 2.2
• PHP debuger XDebug 2.0 or later

I must admit that for debugging code in Zend we don’t need to install additional software, but this coud be the main reason why is Zend slower one.

Conclusion:
NetBeans offers: php debugging, subversion control system support, local file history, FTP upload files when runs php app, developer collaboration support, it is free, and it’s open source.

You can add plugins such as UML pack, or Tomcat Server into NetBEans IDE. I think many developer will choose NetBeans IDE for developing, team collaboration and subversion control. I will.