Resources

Programming Resources

HomeSite

For many years, I made do with the venerable HomeSite editing package, starting with version 4.0 and continuing up until version 5.5. It supplied everything I needed at the time, as I worked on my own websites and volunteered on the previous version of the website for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It was a great help in massaging code to conform to HTML standards and with a little work also helped in coding PHP for the MediaWiki and WordPress platforms. However, while it was a very good editing package, I didn’t upgrade it after Macromedia was purchased by Adobe, transforming HomeSite into Dreamweaver, so while demands on its capacity and ability increased, it correspondingly declined in functionality. Therefore, I was forced to find a replacement.

(Note: I still use HomeSite for quick&dirty edting sometimes.)

NetBeans

After much searching, I settled on NetBeans as my primary programming platform. It had everything I needed: a true IDE with a clean interface, expandable and customizable, with additional features like bracket matching and automatic level spacing that made untangling various logical structures less of a pain, interfacing with external Subversion code management systems like TortoiseSVN (which is also what is used for WordPress plugins), etc. Plus, it was at a price that I couldn’t reject.