Just before I begin pasting codes and writing about technical stuff, I thought I’d give a small info on what kind of software I’m using for development. In every case I try to use free products, which are under the Free-software licence.
As I mainly do web development I’d mention some of these tools first:
For writing PHP code I really do recommend the Dev-PHP IDE. You can preview your code within the IDE, there is absolutely no need to switch to a browser and load up your script from there. Speaking about previewing the PHP code, you will need a local server to run it. I recommend AppServ. It’s a software package, which includes PHP, MySQL, Apache and phpMyAdmin. You just grab the executable file and set it up within a minute.
(If you need a separate MySQL client - other then phpMyAdmin - I’d choose HeidiSQL.)
For other languages I prefer to use Notepad++. This clever little software has a built in syntax highlighter for literally all of the programming languages that are used nowadays.
As I’ve mentioned before I mainly do web development. For that - and for many other - facts I use Firefox. I would like to mention a couple of neat add-ons which will make your life a lot more easier. Probably I don’t have to introduce Joe Hewitt’s Firebug. A nice add-on to mention is HackBar for exploiting all the unnecessary injection attacks.
IE Tab is just another amazing add-on which will load IE engine into a Firefox tab, so basically you can view any website if you’d see it under IE. Oh yeah, no more Alt-Tab between FF and IE…do Ctrl-Tab between the tabs under Firefox.
NoScript is an add-on which makes your browsing more safe. It blocks all the scripts (Javascript, Java) without mercy.
Last but not least let me mention the Web Developer add-on. It will give you lots of useful web developer tools so you can view and test your website easily. Lovely to use this add-on with Firebug.
That’s all the tools/software I use. I really recommend them to you all as I’ve been using them for quite a time now and I can’t complain. They are all handy.