Hot on the heels of Komodo 3.5 for OS X, the final version of Zend Studio is now available too (upgrading as I write this). I’ve been using the betas for a while, and I think it’s a great upgrade over version 4. I’m a little concerned by the comments and writeup in another blog In Golgota, that had a fairly negative write up about Zend as far as Mac integration and such goes. I can honestly say that Zend on OS X runs great and the issues he’s seeing, I’ve not seen.
For one, he complains that he can’t relocate where it installs… sure you can. I put mine in /Applications/Tools/Zend Studio 5/. No problem there. Then he complains that the bin/ folder contains a bunch of files.. well… ok… not a big deal really, just don’t look in it. Use the created alias or make your own (I aliased /Application/Tools/Zend Studio to /Applications/Tools/Zend Studio 5/bin/ZDE… not hard). Then he complains about how stuffit won’t archive a zip file? Blame stuffit! All I did was go to the resulting zip file, double-click on it in the Finder, and voila… unarchived. That’s a complaint?
As far as the java bit goes… this is noted on the Zend website. It expliticly states (somewhere) that you need a newer java than what comes stock with OS X (I think in the product requirements section). So what? Just one extra download. Doesn’t interfere with the system java and happily works alongside it. Granted, he does have a point… it would have been nice if the installer checked for the appropriate java version and then told you where to get it if it couldn’t find it.
Other than that, I’m loving Zend Studio 5. I played a bit with Komodo after I installed it, but I think I’ve become to used to Zend to really feel comfortable in Komodo anymore. Golgote has an issue with Zend? He’d have fits with Komodo. At least Zend provides it’s own copy of PHP… Komodo doesn’t, and can’t use the verison of PHP installed with OS X. Instead, it points you to a third-party PHP suite (which, granted, is well done and quite good). Not sure about the requirements in Komodo for the other languages, although they do recommend ActivePerl, ActivePython, etc. (ie. ActiveState’s builds rather than the system-installed builds).
I’m gonna have to sit down and compare Komodo to Zend… I’ve got both versions fully registered (and the pro version of Komodo to boot) so it’ll be interesting to see what’s what. As it stands now, I prefer Zend… but it’s also because I’ve become comfortable with it and it’s layout. Maybe once I monkey around with Komodo as I compare them, I’ll go back to it… I used to be a die-hard Komodo fan (still on the beta team, in fact.. just haven’t been able to do much since it a) didn’t run on OS X, and b) didn’t work well with the x86_64 version of Mandriva).