Development Tools Research

Back in my old days, I have developed a lot applications and programs. I've learned a lot that performance is not the rule of thumb in many cases and I gave a better perspective to structure and code readability. Until recently, I developed applications with only text editor like notepad++ for PHP. Sometimes, I used popular IDE(Integrated Development Environment) like Netbeans for Java and C++ and Eclipse for Python. At that time, I do not use any VCS(Version Control System) to share my work among my peers and it got messy a lot of times.


One day, an idea to make a little research for the best development tools came up. I want to find the best tools that can made me more productive and cleaner than ever. So, I used some of my time to find the best work environment that will give me the best result.


Text Editor


My first research is to find a better text editor than notepad++. My criteria for text editor is that it must be lightweight(run quickly after opening a file), simple design with no toolbar, easy to customize, and a directory explorer. My result came up with two results. They are gedit and Sublime Text. Both of them offer all my needs. I choose Sublime Text in the end because it has better design. :). Believe me, try Sublime Text and you will love it. Editing text was not so much fun before.


IDE


I have a lot of complain for open sourced IDE like Netbeans and Eclipse as I found a lot of bugs within their IDE. Bugs are lowering my productivity. So, my criteria for IDE is that must be lightweight, little bugs(I know that bugs will always be there, but keep it minimum), great code completion, VCS integration, unit testing integration, attached debugger, and code re factoring.  It was very much criteria for an IDE, though I think. I've tried a lot of IDE and finally I got IDEs that very much came up with my criteria. It was PyCharm, PhpStorm, and Intellij IDEA. It was very light and powerful. The only drawback is that the software is paid license and it was very expensive. You can see all of the feature on jetbrains.com. I'm pretty sure you'll love it except for the price. :D


VCS


It was quite simple to choose a VCS. I empasize more on finding a good repository for the VCS than choosing a good VCS. All VCS are good. You can choose according with you needs. I choose git because it was distributed and a lot of repository has git. After trying some online repository, I came up with conclusion that github is the best repository. It has beautiful GUI explorer and good shell. It really drives your productivity.


In short, I've tried all of this product and I got better productivity as most of the job can be solved easily with such powerful features. :)