http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=169668

doonyakka has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Although it's obviously a highly subjective question, I doubt whether it provokes as much heated discussion and flamage as, say, Emacs vs vi vs vim etc...yawn...

So, here goes:

What is the best Perl IDE (or editor) for Windows (and AS Perl)? Are there any comparative reviews of IDEs and editors?

At the moment (and as a beginner), I'm trying out Perl Builder and EditPlus, both of which I quite like, but I'd be interested to hear the opinions of more seasoned Monks.

Thanks,
doonyakka

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by cjf (Parson) on May 28, 2002 at 00:08 UTC
[reply]
      Good selection of nodes cjf, I would like to add the node Favorite or most wanted text editor features? as I think that listing features that people like or miss is also helpful. Another, more recent node, Whats your development environment also points out that things other than just the editor (SSH support) may also be important.

      I believe that there are good editors/IDEs available, but often we tend to use one which we are most familiar with, even if there are better ones. I still use Programmer's File Editor, just becase I came to it before anything else....

      There is also a long, though not complete list, of Perl editors on the tombstone 163 page.

[reply]
        I believe that there are good editors/IDEs available, but often we tend to use one which we are most familiar with, even if there are better ones.

        I second that! I really like CPerl mode in XEmacs, but more often than not I find myself staring at pico instead. =|

        Old habits are hard to break.
[reply]
      Thanks for the links, very helpful. Weird though, I searched for 'IDE' before posting my question, but got no results.

      Cheers,
      doonyakka

      Update: Excellent nodes and info, thanks to all who posted. Good to know about the 3-character minimum for searches. You learn something every day, especially on PM.

[reply]
        According to Super Search Only words 4 chars or longer are indexed. That would be why you received no results in your search. It just forces you to be more creative with your terms when you search.

        BigGuy
        "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
        "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler
[reply]
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by demerphq (Chancellor) on May 28, 2002 at 11:49 UTC
    Personally, I do much of my perl programming in UltraEdit, however I recently have started to also use VisualPerl.

    You will find an ultraedit wordfile for Perl 5.6 that I put together here.(The default one chews IMO, and doesnt recognize many perl5.6 keyswords)

    Ultraedit can be a tiny bit finiky to set up and configure correctly but it supports very large files very well, has support for rectangular capture, hex mode and a bunch of other features that make it a tool that sees a lot of use in our shop.

    VisualPerl is part of the whole DotNet stuff so it may not be what you want.

    Yves / DeMerphq
    ---
    Writing a good benchmark isnt as easy as it might look.

[reply]

      Ultraedit has been mentioned a few times and it used to be my favorite The newer version even does word completion.
      Recently I have moved over to Komodo from ActiveState.
      I was just looking at the Activestate Komodo site and realized that they now charge $30 for a copy of the newest version.
      What I did notice was that version 1.1 is still free you may want to use that instead, here is the link.
      Komodo feels a little slower than Ultraedit but has a built in debugger, RegEx builder, Code-folding and apparently
      remote debugging for CGI scripts which I haven't yet tried. The info blurb is here. I fine the AutoCompletion and in IDE
      debugging the biggest productivity enhances. I doesn't handle very long lines quite as well as Ultraedit and doesn't
      have a spell checker as yet but if I'm going to sit down and code for more than a few minutes it is what I use.

      Richard

[reply]
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by Biker (Priest) on May 28, 2002 at 08:12 UTC

    Under M$ Windows, I'm split between two products.

    • For just a plain editor, I highly appreciate UltraEdit. It has all the features a strong GUI editor is expected to have in Windows. And most important, it has the notion of a project. I write and support several major production applications in our shop. UltraEdit's projects come in very handy when you write one Web 'application' consisting of more than fifty Perl files and then suddenly need to give your attention to another (maybe five or ten source file) application.
    • Whenever I need to debug a piece of software, especially a non-CGI application, then I prefer to run it through Perl Builder. It is still far from perfect, but I'd say 'the least bad' debugger.
    Everything went worng, just as foreseen.

[reply]
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by S_Shrum (Pilgrim) on May 28, 2002 at 07:39 UTC

    Recently I have been using 'Crimson Editor' (www.crimsoneditor.com). It supports a number of languages (Perl, C, Java, MatLab, HTML, etc.) and has the capability to support more via syntax definition files for other languages.

    ======================
    Sean Shrum
    http://www.shrum.net

[reply]
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by data64 (Chaplain) on May 28, 2002 at 02:33 UTC

    I use Cperl mode in gnu emacs.

    <cite>Just a tongue-tied, twisted, earth-bound misfit. -- Pink Floyd</cite>

[reply]
[d/l]
      I also use Gnu Emacs with cperl-mode (under Win32, Solaris and Linux) and a slightly adapted version (due to my taste and some OS-differences) of Steve Ackermann's .emacs which gives me easy access to emacs features like dos<->unix converting, a little filebrowser, commenting and identing of regions, ...

      Some time ago, I had a look at Kommodo from http://www.activestate.com/, and nearly liked it as much as emacs especially because of the debugger. But I hardly ever have to debug my codes with a debugger; most often, some prints are faster.

      Best regards,
      perl -e "s>>*F>e=>y)\*martinF)stronat)=>print,print v8.8.8.32.11.32"

[reply]
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by kodo (Hermit) on May 28, 2002 at 13:30 UTC
    Well I personally love vi, because it's so simple, small and on every system. And once you've found out how to use it efficient you can code really fast with it!
    I do not like syntax-highlighting because it confuses me more than it helps me. My IDE depends on the system I'm on...

    Another interesting node about this topic is What font/screen-color for coding?,

    giant
[reply]
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by simon.proctor (Vicar) on May 28, 2002 at 07:53 UTC
    On Windows I use Homesite 4.5 with a browser window open on the HTML Perl CD from Oreilly.

    I like Homesite so I use it.
[reply]
Re: What's the best Perl IDE/editor?
by Aristotle (Chancellor) on May 28, 2002 at 16:46 UTC
    I've yet to see an IDE that lets me work as fast as I've gotten after I learned vim. All else looks pale since..

    Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]

      I like gVim 6.1 a lot. Nothing else seems to so cleanly deal with POD, Here docs, q{}-type quoting, regexes. The near-perfect syntax highlighting helps me with debugging.

      other pros include nearly identical versions for Linux and Windows, customizable schemes, scriptablity, huge number of addition languages supported.

      Also gVim is a perfect tool to ween yourself off of mouse heavy IDEs, you never need to take your hands off the keyboard if you don't want to. But if you do like using the mouse, as long as you are in insert mode, you won't be lost.

      For a good notebook/IDE hybrid I also reccommend editplus.

[reply]

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