Fine. After 20+ years of PHP development I'm going to give it a shot. Will be attempting to migrate from VSCode. Any tips for that transition in particular, or for setting up PHPStorm in general? I have a subscription to Laracasts and plan on watching that series, but I'm not sure if it's outdated. Thanks!
There’s a fairly good plugin for JetBrains IDEs called “Key Promoter X” that reminds you whenever you do an action (click build, open a terminal, change directories) of the keyboard shortcut to do that same thing. It’s very handy for getting into the workflow quickly.
Thanks for this. I'm not necessarily aiming for mouse-free development, but I've known for years that I could be better with keyboard shortcuts. I had no idea this was a thing.
I second the PHP Inspections (EA Extented) plugin.
If you use Symfony don't miss the plugin, it's almost (dev-)life changing.
If you use xdebug take the time to set it up (way easier these days but can still be challenging depending on your setup), breakpoints work great.
More related to all Jetbrains IDEs:
One often overlooked aspect is the database integration (look at the tabs on the right). In addition to replacing most needs for a third party program it gives you autocompletion for your in-code sql querys.
Checkout the git integration. From the "annotate" entry menu to the all fantastic diff/merging/etc tools.
Lean to use the different searches, "in path" (toggle the preview option), classname, file, or the global shift-shift.
Try all the integrated tools, the terminal & ssh, the http client, the live templates, etc.
Lean about the local history (usually in the context menu above the git entry), it will save your ass at some point (it can restore entire deleted-by-mistake folders).
Please do share your PhpStorm journey at some point. I installed it yesterday after trying out Visual Studio Code for the Nth time and again being utterly unimpressed with having to use a GUI fobic editor in 2020. Everything feels clunky and when you start adding more complex plugins things really start to fall apart, like having to use a FTP plugin through the command line.
PhpStorm has its flaws [0] but so far I'm shocked by how much more productive I am with it as compared to Visual Studio Code. It's like having access to a wise dev who can point out flaws with your code, turning the IDE into a learning tool.
[0] The non-native UI of PhpStorm is annoying but not a major issue. I dislike how project centric it is but I like that you can configure almost every setting on a per project level. It's also very expensive for solo devs (edit: actually the monthly cost for individual use seems to be 8.9 EUR which isn't that bad).
The cost will go down in future years as you resubscribe. I think that works on the monthly as well as annual subscriptions. The entire toolbox for me is now... $140/year I think (I use data grip, web storm, phpstorm, IntelliJ all regularly)
I use it every day and love it. Probably the biggest thing is getting the keyboard shortcuts setup how you like and knowing them.
- "Search Everywhere" with double tapping shift (at least on mine) is really nice. And the fuzzy file search might be the thing I use most often.
- Git support is great, especially the shelving changes support.
- I use navigating around words using Alt+arrow-left/arrow-right all the time as well.
- "Extend selection" command can be very useful for selecting increasingly larger blocks intelligently.
- Go to matching symbol (default Ctrl-Shift-M on KDE keymap) is useful
Loads more, I read the daily tips to figure out some of the newer stuff, or look through the keymap.
If you like Vim style keys, there's a plugin for that.
I wrote a blog post on my most-used shortcuts in JetBrains' IDEs (=> also PHPStorm), maybe this is useful for you as well. It was discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22925484
I've been recommending "PHP Inspections EA" for many, it adds a many more extra inspections provided the environment (PHP versions, extensions, etc) are configured correctly.
This is really cool. I've been excitedly watching how wgpu is developing. I don't have much graphics experience outside of one ogl but it looks like it's turning into something seriously neat.
Definitely. The last time I did any truly serious graphics programming was in the early noughts and the fact that I can now toy around with a really modern graphics stack in a reasonably straightforward, cross-platform yet still performant way is really wonderful.
I've been enjoying my time with wgpu-rs so far and I intend to keep doing so.
I think this is exactly what people need. That is, something quick and a bit humorous yet informative; something that gives you a high-level overview, so that you don't get baffled by the 1000-page thick Dragon book or whatnot.
A significant chunk of what the Dragon book covers is state machine theory, what you need to know if you're writing a compiler-compiler like yacc. The state of the art in code generation had moved on even for the edition I read in college back in 2004 or so, so the tail end of the book isn't super relevant. IMO it was never a good book for practical compiler implementation. It's better as an academic reference for compiler theory, especially DFA, NFA, PDA etc. construction.
