I’m a .NET Developer. Primarily Visual Basic, but I’ve worked in C# before too. I’ve also done some RPG (on the AS 400) and some PHP.
I’ve recently been contacted to do some contract PHP/MySQL work again. So I started looking to see what was available for IDE tools. I wanted something that would appear familiar to me. I didn’t want to have to relearn the PHP language, AND learn a new IDE.
I found VS.PHP – It’s a PHP IDE that sits in the Visual Studio IDE. They have several versions depending on what you need. I chose the Standalone version, since I develop in a Virtual PC Windows XP box. I didn’t want to install my VS 2008 license there, and not be able to use VS 2008 under Vista (where I do most of my .NET development.
I’ve only completed some sample projects, but so far, I’m impressed. The IDE is familiar to me, and I get syntax checking, intellisense and the F5 functionality to test. Reminds me a lot of doing ASP.Net development. I’m still using the free trial, but for the price of $99, it’s a definite “Must Buy” if I get the contract.
For the MySQL front-end, I’m trying MySQL-Front. It has a trial version, so I’m using that. So far, it’s decent. The UI is a little old, but fairly easy to figure out. I’ll be looking around for other visual front-ends for MySQL. I like the SQL Server Management Studio, and I’d like something similar for MySQL.
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