Last week Apress Java editor Steve Anglin and lead contributor to the newly launched java.apress.com passed along a link to Eclipse Plugin Central. Given my present Eclipse obsession (Zend’s Eclipse-driven phpide rocks), I’ve spent a bunch of time perusing the site, seeking out cool extensions. So far, I’ve earmarked the following extensions for experimentation sometime this week:

• Afae: An all-purpose editor with some level of support for languages such as C, JavaScript, Ruby, and bash. A comment on the plugin’s page calls it “Textmate for Eclipse”, referring to the popular OS X editor.
• Subversive SVN client: Integrated Subversion support. There’s also Subclipse, no idea which one is better, thoughts welcome.
• Eclipse Shortcuts: A list of Eclipse shortcuts. Not exactly a tool, but nonetheless very useful.

Jason

All too often I come across beginning PHP tutorials in which the author praises the ease in which newbies can get acquainted with the language, and invites them to fire up their favorite text editor to begin coding. Because so many newcomers begin coding PHP on Windows, often this text editor is Notepad. Last time I checked, Notepad offered nothing by way of coding convenience, nor a means for extending the application to allow for such amenities.

Why not point newcomers to a tool that will help these individuals get further acquainted with PHP without getting lost in unnecessary organizational details such as tabbing between multiple windows (most notably editor and browser), having to hunt down missing quotation marks, and in the case of having a significant bug, being left to simple echo statements?