PhpStorm is the ideal IDE for any serious PHP or WordPress developer
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
PhpStorm is the preferred IDE for my development team. We use it to build our websites, leveraging it's fantastic feature set and AI features to speed and ease the development of our small and large scale projects. It makes managing projects in git significantly easier along with things like code completion, error handling, validation, etc.
Pros
- git version control in software is superior to any other product
- resolving merge conflicts is a breeze in comparison to other tools and is built in
- switching between different projects in a simple interface makes managing multiple sites significantly easier
- latest AI integrations make working with modern AI significantly easier
Cons
- Some of the newest github copilot features lag behind what's being done in vs code and would be nice if more of the newer features were brought over though this has greatly improved recently
- Interface can be a little overwhelming for newcomers
- Some features like rainbow brackets should be native rather than addon
Return on Investment
- Recent AI advancements have saved us time to build by integrating it direct with the IDE allowing build to deployment to happen at a more rapid pace than previously possible
- Integrated AI commit message generation saves time and effort from team members shorting time writing documentation allowing more time spent in development
- Integrated git development causes less friction across team with version control and merge conflict resolution shortening development work flows
Usability
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft Visual Studio Code
Other Software Used
Storylane, Atlassian Jira, GitHub
