Buh Bye 5.5.0, Hello beast from the black lagoon

[scotdiddle]

Hello Folks,

I must be dead because I gave up my Zend Studio 5.5.0 for windows. Zend Studio 9.0 is kinda ok... I still can't get it to debug remote files, and the SVN integration would be ok if I could figure out how to eliminate my first baby steps at trying to establish the repository. Now I have three repositories, only one of which is correct, but when ever I try to do ANYTHING, V 9.0 complains about "No Repository found at file:/M:... some path... ". When one trys to create a new project with SVN, I see the three repositories, but opening them ( + ) show < an error occured while accessing the repository entry >

So, this is a round-about-way of asking for help on how to start over or delete the incorrecly defined repositories... ( I tried un-installing / re-installing, and removing any references to SVN repositories from regedit, but no love from v9)

Also, I'm not sure my " Working " repository is working correctly... Sometimes, a changed file in the working copy followed by a commit shows "Nothing has changd, nothing to commit".

Any help. advice or pointers will be appreciated.

Thanks, Scot L. Diddle, Richmond VA

[crazymerlin]

Unfortunate for you that you have just converted. Many of us followed the upgrade path over the years and so have come to learn what it takes to tame the beast. Some points are still annoying but there is always Vim at hand to save the day should you run into issues.

The problem with something like ZS is that you have to constantly add new features to keep up with the competition, and also to keep up with internet trends. This leads to a backlog of issues that never really get fully addressed.

In short: The problem with the beast is the size of it; The thing people love about it is the sheer size of it.

:0)

[scotdiddle]

crazymerlin,

Thanks for the reply... I tried V 6.x ... Stink-a-reeno. V 7.0 not much better... I didn't bother with V 8.x. Now my boss had to go and get a copy of 9.0 as part of our ZendServer purchase. Not to be left behind ( not much chance of that, boss can't code PHP yet... (he's still an RPG IV guy) ), I went and slapped down my hard-earned coin for V 9.x. Like I said, looks promising... The reason I did not convert earlier is because I need to be productive as a professional PHP developer and Zend Studio 5.5.1 -> 8.x.x slowed down my ability to work productively... I found it quicker to "var_dump and exit" to see variable values than I did trying to get the other versions to debug remotely correctly.

Scot L. Diddle, Richmond VA

[scotdiddle]

Hello again from deep inside this monster known lovingly as "The Beast from the Black Lagoon".

Well, Google was no help, but I found part of my answer from Bing.com:

http://files-source.zend.com/help/Zend-Studio/configuring_an_svn_connection.htm

It basically shows how to get into the SVN perspective... Once there, it only took a little detective work to deduce how to delete my offending SVN url's. (right-click on url, then select "Delete")

Clear as swamp-gas, yes ?

Thank you for reading and playing along.

Scot L. Diddle, Richmond VA

[scotdiddle]

Hello All,

I did not bury Zend 5.5.0... I did uninstall it however...Now it has been re-intalled because I had to copy-n-paste from V9 into V5 to find a simple typo ( '":" vs ";")

How in the flight-jacket does one tell the beast the show programmer errors like missing simicolons, brackets or misspelled key words...

Also auto code completion is missing for built-in functions and user defined $variables...

And yes, I have tried all of the goggle / bing / Zend Forum suggested "Fixes".

Bad beast. BAD !!!!

5.5.0 is my friend... V9... Not so much.

Scot L. Diddle, Richmond VA

[kentatzend]

The biggest thing to make sure you're donig in moving from 5.5 to Studio 9 is to make sure you're using a php project to hold your code. If you don't then php operation like code completion do not work.

[scotdiddle]

kentatzend,

Yeah, but... I don't wanna... Cry, whimper, butch... I can create a new project relatively easily, but try to open an existing project, not so much. 'project / open project' is ALWAYs greyed out...

Let's say I have the need to write a one-time conversion program because some user entered wrong data and we have invalid data in some DB table... I sure as heck don't want to create a project to scream through a db table changing all x'es tot y's for some critera ( .... where someColumnValue = 'record key')

I need to apoligize to my 5.5.0 and make him top-dog again.

Bad beast ! BAD !!!$@#$q@##%#

Scot L Diddle, Richmond VA

[jasimon9]

I too am once again evaluating the upgrade of Zend Studio from 5.5.1 to 9.x.

I evaluated 6.1, 7.0.1, 7.2.0, 8.0.0, 9.0.0 and now am trying again with 9.0.2.

It truly is the "beast from the black lagoon."

My reasons to upgrade:
- have a tool with current coding features
- have a supported tool
- be able to run an OS X native version and thus remove one more mission-critical function from dependence on a Windows Virtual Machine.

My reasons not to upgrade:
- vast numbers of features I can't understand
- vast numbers of features I don't need
- bloatware and slowness
- it does not "just work", whereas 5.5 does "just work"

My list of mandatory features is this short and simple list:
- edit code
- debug
- integrate with SVN (not absolutely essential, as I am used to using a separate, standalone client TSVN).
- access mysql database (could probably live without by using some other tool as well)

So I am not demanding on the features list. But I am very demanding on the "it must work" list (My new tagline: "I will gladly trade you 250 new features for one 'it just works.'") The newer additions such as jQuery libraries, etc, would be very nice, but only if we get past the basic list first.

If I could get those items working smoothly, I would probably migrate to 9.x. But trying to do the simplest things in the current version of Studio very often results in all kinds of baffling issues using obscure/obtuse/Eclipse terminology and concepts. The very latest example of that is in trying to perform Search-in-files. It does not find anything, perhaps because my project is not "in a workspace", even though it seems to parse all the files.

The problems I have had with the versions between 5.5 and 8.0 include the following:
* having ZDE recognize the installed Zend Server with such fun scenarios as ZDE saying "no server found" but when going in to configure a Server, it was already there and would not let you set it because it is already set up
* issues with the ports used by Zend Server breaking things
* getting SVN to work
* getting debugging to work
* getting mysql client to work
* many, many other issues/bugs previously reported in connection with the earlier products.

I am glad to say that most of the above are no longer are a problem, but am including them as background.

Every developer expects the following from his tools: simple things should be easy and hard things possible.

My experience with each version of the Eclipse-based beast from the black lagoon has always been the opposite: that the simple things are difficult if not impossible. But 5.5 just keeps chugging along, doing everything with a minimum of fuss, and a much simpler mental model of the workflow.

There used to be in the documentation some "help" for those converting from 5.5. However, it was useless, because all it did was give the new menu paths to do typical tasks (which any developer could figure out) instead of explaining the new concepts and workflows that are needed.

Likely I will spend a bit more time on this evaluation in the hopes of surmounting this painful learning curve. But my past experience shows that it is more likely that I will get to a point of frustration as I have in the five previous attempts and just stay with the obsolete-but-working-well 5.5.

[boverhof]

The more I read this forum, the more I get the feeling that Zend definitely did something wrong moving to an Eclipse based development environment.

I am giving Zend Studio 9 a try after I've worked with 5.5 for quite a while... and the more I use it, the more it annoys me. Why is it so slow, even on a brand new laptop it is slower than 5.5 used to be on a 5 year old machine! (I won't even go into all the missing or broken functionality)

[boverhof]

The answer to all your problems is called NetBeans: http://forums.zend.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8378 :)