I will probably stay with all three

I was able to create a simple javascript -> php connection to upload a file to the website which will make it easier than using FTP (sometimes). I found out that Aptana can save the php files, but cannot open them back up. I guess it wants to run the file and finds out it can. So I can use smultron for simple better than a text editor editing. I have to keep the Mac stuff around. The next step is connecting to MySql database.

Still looking for an editor

I downloaded 4 editors / IDEs to look at. The first is xCode by apple. I am sure it does a lot, but I wanted to just write some simple Javascript and see what would happen. I got lost pretty quickly in xCode. I am sure that it does a lot more than I know how to do. I tried for about 5 minutes and I even clicked on their tutorial. I wasn't able to get anything to look like editing Javascript.

I next looked at Aptana. A very complex IDE also, but the first thing that came up was a tutorial. It was a video that I was able to share the screen with and follow along. I finally created a javascript file and saw the context highlighting and suggestions. A very good start that was very much helped by the cheating video. Downside is that the video did not match my look.

I launched KompoZer. This seems to be a very low end editor that is trying to do more. Javascript wasn't an option that I could find. It did seem to offer quick HTML editing, but that is not what I am trying to do.

I lastly tried Smultron. The author simply states that he is not going to do any more updates. It was easy to launch and was nothing more than an editor. I liked it a lot. It was simple and I was able to get started pretty easily.

So after spending 30 minutes I have eliminated just KompoZer. I am going to look at the others in depth a little more.

Still deciding on an Editor

I found two websites that offered comparisons of editors.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/05/07/35-useful-source-code-editors-reviewed/

http://www.pure-mac.com/webed.html

I have decided to stick with the mac, since that is where I can do the most programming. It is amazing in these two lists that there are editors unique to both. I have to admit I am looking for free too. Some have free demos. Others have free non-pro versions. Prices can very from $20 to over $400. I download Aptana, Smultron, and Kompzer to give them a spin. There were others that were supposed to be free, but ended up being demos. I will check these out and see where I go from there.

There is more to editors than just writing code. Some are integrated into a whole environment of testing, debugging, etc. In those cases they are considered an IDE (integrated development environment). Aptana falls into that category. The one feature I think I would want is version control. I am alos going to check out the Apple tools Xcode. Maybe by the next entry I will have some feedback on these.

Before you build, you must choose tools

So I am going to build a web site that is actually more of a web app, or web 2.0. In the beginning the web (and I mean HTML and web browsers, not gopher and finger) was a way of delivering documents. People got really clever in how they would make the documents look and interact with other documents, but the web pages were just pages. Then people started getting more clever and figured out ways to make the documents change and then just parts of a document to change and then pretty soon you have web 2.0. Now developing a web site is more about building a site or an app rather than defining pages that will be served up.

Web pages were always easy write. It just required any text editor. There was no compiling of code or accessing libraries. But then as web 2.0 started to emerge libraries appeared and tools became more complex. Web apps can still be written in a simple text editor. The tools and libraries were supposed to help make development easier and faster and more robust. I have never liked not knowing what code was doing. Even the most simple libraries bothered me, but unless I was going to write a whole operating system in assembly language I had to decide what I could live with and what I could live without.

The first tool choice must be the editor. The simplest text editor would be TextEdit on the Mac. Oh BTW I am on a Mac. I have regretted the move ever since I made it 6 months ago, but I am resigned to my choice. I have a PC that I use at work and so I guess having both is a tolerable consolation to having to put up with my dog of a machine. Now one thing that TextEdit does not do is tell me when I have typed something incorrectly. There are 100's if not 1,000's of different editors out there. I am assuming that every time that some one finds that and editor is missing one feature they go out and write their own. So my next goal is to find the editor that I want to use. Here is a problem. I will want to do a little editing at work (for work of course) so I will have to consider that I may have to use WordPad at work on the same files. That is it for now. Maybe tomorrow I will have some words to say about editors

Where have all the good names gone

I have been using GnuCash for our personal finances and I actually developed a set of routines that made budgeting for our family work. This is a first for us. After 15 years of marriage we have a budget that actually helps us spend out money wisely. In the past we would track our spending, but after awhile we realized that we were spending a lot of time tracking, but it was not affecting what it was that we were doing with the money. Well our Dell finally died and it was time to get a new computer. I had been a macbigot back in the early days when I worked for Adobe Systems. But I later worked for Gateway and now I work for Bank of America and I just melted into the PC world. So I was an easy target for switching to a Mac. The plus side was that there was an Apple store in our local mall. So we bought a Mac and I have been really not wanting to regret it, but there is a better than average chance that when we are done with this computer we will go back to the World of Windows. One of the programs that I miss is GnuCash. GnuCash is supposed to be installable on the Mac, but after several days I gave up. So I have an old lap top that is just used to run GnuCash. But then I was thinking that it would be really nice to have all of the features of GnuCash that I want on a web page. That is the start of this project. I have some programming experience, but thinks are not done in Pascal any more. So I am going to have to figure out how to do this from scratch. The first thing I looked for was a cool name, iBudget, myBudget, they were both taken by search engine whores. I have the domain kurtclement.com and kurtclement.org reserved for no other reason than I didn't want some one else to have them. Now if I ever get this project off the ground I might use them.

And so it begins. . .