PHP Debugging is Better Than ColdFusion
Previously I talked about why debugging in ColdFusion can be difficult. ASP.Net has full debugging facilities, including breakpoints, variable watching, stepping, etc. (when using Visual Studio).
I decided to research the debugging scene in PHP. It appears that there are lots of options for debugging in PHP, and all of the above mentioned debugging features are available if you use the right tools. There is a debugger called DBG that offers break points, stepping, variable watching, on the fly variable substitution, and other features. PHPEclipse has some debugging features. And Zend's own IDE offers debugging.
As I said before, debugging is a huge weakness for ColdFusion, and I sincerely hope Adobe and/or the community comes up with a solution for this, sooner more than later.
Jake Munson
38 Yrs old
a quote today from Aral Balkan (FlashAnt) seems to apply here too:
"Possibly the rarest commodity in our field currently is developer time (it definitely isnt development tools or competing technologies, which were flooded in)"
I don't want to spend ugly amounts of time bug fixing or maintaining products. Quality debugging tools really help.
Adobe, are you listening?
What would be even neater is for the company to build an new concept of a unit test that integrated with debugging! Imagine unit testing that stored the results in a database. Imagine those tests being able to plug into a system that watched the internal values of code!
The time has not come, it has passed to give the CF community back a targeted IDE that isn't just better than other CF options. It's time to realize we need something that competes with VS and Zend!
--- Ben
Now granted... they have started to add some stuff to DW for debugging. But that only lets you see the top level. If you have structure it doesn't do the job. Again... debugging was rarely used because in CFStudio you had to configure it. In VB6, for instance, it just ran!
P.S. Did some looking and noted there are some super awsome features in other application debuggers! Even PHPEclipse has that built in. They also commonly are adding a "Docs" feature also.
This should be a CF 7.1 feature and it should be put out ASAP. This would be the start of showing that Adobe is interested in Developing CF and not just Supporting it! (Of course, don't forget that it will take an IDE to interact with it.)
CF is, to my eyes, different to this. It's been championed by the same people who promote real choice (eg: Sean Corfield espousing the virtues of using Apple and replacing every Microsoft product with something else).
CFEclipse, as an IDE, is also different. It's free. It's been made with dedication by Rob Rohan, helped by people like Spike and encourages input from everyone. I consider it part of the "open source view of the world".
"It is time for Adobe to drop some money back into the product NOW and give us our IDE back... (like investing in CFEclipse NOW...)"
Be careful. Using VS (and the plight of Borland as an alternative) as a role model may not give "real choice". IMHO, there's two arguments here: debugging hooks in the runtime AND Adobe making (or abetting) a quality IDE for rapid CF development.
Does Adobe really *need* to create an IDE for CF? And if they did and claimed it as their own sellable product, what would people think if they got just as greedy as Microsoft and tried the same tactics (IDE/runtime lock-in)?
Or just be "sugar daddy" to a chosen (free) one to get them up to speed?
or would they be better off just providing the hooks so *any* IDE can access the debugging features and let the market sort themselves out who that is?
IBM really stirred the hornets nest champoining the Eclipse project. Seeing Microsoft giving away full copies of VS2005 at WebDU shows just how much their product is worth...
one last point: I would accept nothing less than the features as in VS2005. Think of it as a benchmark. Otherwise it would be half-arsed and a waste of time.
John-good point. If debugging was difficult before, there wouldn't be a lot of people asking for it in MX
barry-I think an API for debugging would be best, but even if Adobe only adds it to dreamweaver, and leaves CFEclipse and the others in the cold, I'd still be happy. I'd just fire up dreamweaver to debug when I needed it. :) It's better than nothing.
...and Adobe with CF didn't?