Non Java VM based PHP/JS IDE for MAC OSX?

Question

I'm a PHP developer and I use Eclipse on Mac (through Java VM), however - it seems to be very slow responsive when working with large source files (sometimes it is inevitable to edit such files).

That forces me to open subject file in some editor like TextMate or TextWrangler because these two handle large files much better than Eclipse.

I assume this is because Eclipse is driven on a Java VM, and probably TextMate and TextWrangler aren't (not sure though)?

Therefore, I'm wondering if someone could recommend some good IDE for PHP/JS for MAC OSX not based on Java VM (TextMate and/or TextWrangler are too narrowed to be used as IDE)? It is not important for such IDE to be freeware, as long as it is not too expensive.

Thanks in advance, Radovan

Answer 1

Don't underestimate the power of TextMate. The Emacs style macros can do a lot very quickly. Still, aside from the intuitive shortcuts and macro's the program is rather "dumb".

Coda by Panic is a good step in the right direction. I usually alternate between the two depending on what I'm working on.

There's actually a lot of support for PHP related tasks in Dreamweaver but... it's Dreamweaver so, it has the same "fatty" problems that most Java based apps do.

There's a program call Espresso, I believe by macrabbit, that's rather similar to Coda, but in the brief time I gave it, preferred Coda.

XCode can handle PHP projects, but it's clearly not the right tool for the job. The file merge program that it comes with is very useful though.

OS X is really missing a clean, intuitive, cocoa based PHP/JS/CSS editor that includes things like code sense, macros, code folding, project management, version control integration. Coda's the best start IMHO, but still not a home run.