Zend Studio for Eclipse Developer's Guide (Developer's Library)

Although I generally tend to "lurk" and read reviews rather than write them, I felt compelled to write one for this Zend Studio for Eclipse book.

I am a professional PHP programmer, and have been a Zend Studio 5.x user for two years. I knew every nook and cranny of Zend Studio 5.x. I had only praise for the product.

When Zend released Zend Studio for Eclipse, I switched over to it. All of a sudden I felt incompetent. I literally couldn't figure out how to do anything, it was so different than what I had gotten used to in v5.x.

The Zend manuals didn't help, there was too much background about eclipse to know in order to do the most basic things. As good as eclipse is, it is not the most intuitive piece of software.

So, try as I did, I just couldn't get anything working with ZS4E, even with the Zend manuals.

Frustrated, I went back to 5.x, in the hope that the zend documentation would eventually improve. I spent several months back in the 5.x product when I decided I would once again try ZS4E, but this time with the help of this book.

Contrary to some of the reviews below, about the book not adding value beyond what is available in the Zend manuals, I strongly disagree.

Perhaps the topics the book covers are the same as what the manual covers, but the book fills in so much background you need to know, and walks you through tasks which you need to do, that it - in my opinion - adds lots of value.

Thanks to the book I have been working in ZS4E for several months now. I repeatedly refer back to the book, not the manuals, when I need to do something new.

So that's the positive. I definitely recommend the book. It is miles ahead of the what the manuals offer.

The only thing I could suggest as a future improvement is to add to the current content by covering more of the oodles of config and operational options available in ZS4E. While the book covers the most important 95% usage options, and the remaining 5% would probably double the size of the book, it would still be nice to have. At least in an appendix.

All in all though, I feel, definitely worth the money, because ZS4E is a much superior product once you get used to all the new stuff and new ways of doing something. This book really helps get you into all the new stuff in a way that a terse manual couldn't.

Thank you to the author and those responsible.

Nice book, that helps me speed up PHP developing in Zend Studio for Eclipse.

Good introduction into Eclipse IDE and advanced PHP development topics like debugging or unit testing.

I cannot recommend this book to any target audience.

For experienced developers the book lacks any detailed information on how (for example) to get remote debugging working or to integrate any version control software. The sparse overviews provided have nothing you won't already know if you've ever used any IDE.

For beginners the book is rife with the kind of errors (the text does not agree with the sample code or images) that will drive them crazy.

The writing is clumsy and full of grammatical and spelling errors. The actual information doesn't go at all beyond what you can get by simply browsing the help files you got with Zend Studio for Eclipse.

Other than being able to read this away from the computer (not the most effective way to learn an IDE) there's no value to this book.

I've never been a big fan of Eclipse but I now use Zend Studio so I had to get used to it. I could not have done it without this book. Eclipse operates so differently than any other IDE I've used that it was like visiting a foreign land but this book was my translator.

Thanks Pete and Ian, I owe you guys a beer if we ever meet in real life.

=C=

Computer libraries strong in Zend Studio for Eclipse for PHP/LAMP developers will find Zend Studio for Eclipse Developer's Guide an excellent survey of the core techniques and terminology that make up Eclipse applications. From code editing and galleries to unit testing, debugging and more, Zend Studio for Eclipse Developer's Guide is an outstanding addition to any Eclipse developer's library.