Most of geeks troll on guys who develops with windows OS. But they forget one thing : their customers use windows. Not using it is making them members of an "Elite" that finally cannot understand their customers. Why don't they like windows ?

• a closed system: but, MacOS is even more closed than Windows
• no cool console: yes, there is not much choice but there is solution
• it's Microsoft: because Apple is better thing ?

So here are a list of good practices for windows developers.

Your working computer is using Windows 7 OS, this document should help you to get a good system to develop web applications. To avoid problems related to Windows, special characters and accents must be avoided in filename and folder name.

File tree

Choose a disk partition outside your system partition. We will call it "Z:" Create a folder "dev" in your root : Z:\dev

Then create the following folder tree under "dev". dev |---config software configurations (_vimrc...) |---java |---jdkXXX |---jreXXX |---js your javascript application (SPA or node app) |---nodejs your node installation |---php |---extensions extensions php autres que celles par défaut (xdebug...) |---libraries librairies php (pear, composer...) |---projects when using FastCGI ISAPI, it is where you store your config/log/resources per project |---oneProject |---config php.ini and every config required by your server |---logs log file for apache, php... |---tmp |---src your project file |---versions |---5.3.28 |---last shorcut to the last version (here: 5.3.28) |---python |---27 |---33 |---ruby |---200 |---server |---FileZillaServer |---Zend if you use ZendServer (but run only in FastCgi ISAPI) |---Mysql if you run your own MySQL outside the LAMP stack from EasyPHP/Zend/... |---MongoDb |---OtherServer |---ssl where you store your ssl keys |---tmp because it is always usefull to get a tmp folder in dev |---tools all softwares required for devlopment |---www where you should checkout your project. Each project must have its own sub-folder

Tools guide

All that Tools must be installed under your dev/tools folder

• conemu: http://sourceforge.net/projects/conemu/
• ansicon: http://blog.mmediasys.com/2010/11/24/we-all-love-colors/
• Console2: to replace the poor dos shell, follow this guide http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Console2ABetterWindowsCommandPrompt.aspx
• an IDE like
  • Netbeans
  • Eclipse : DT version or install php plugins manually, but you should install some plugins
  • PHPStorm
  • SublimeText (please pay for it)
• GitExtensions: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gitextensions/
• Git: installed from GitExtension
• GnuWin32: GitExtensions will install some linux like Tools, but some are missing (sed...) so install them ith http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/
• KDiff3: installed from GitExtension
• memcached: the memory cache key/value usually used with PHP, must be installed as a service
• MysqlWorkbench
• n++: or any other light text editor, http://notepad-plus-plus.org/fr/
• regular expression editor: http://www.waterproof.fr/products/RegExpEditor/download.php
• Docker : https://docs.docker.com/installation/windows/
• Vagrant
• VirtualBox
• vim72

Under this dev/tools folder, you should also put some exe files :

• kitty.exe: remote shell
• puttygen.exe: ssl key management
• wget.exe
• curl.exe

Add dev/tools to your PATH to allow those exec to be called from everywhere

PHP installation

You can install any PHP version you want Under dev/php/versions. Add dev/php/last to your PATH to allow php to be called anywhere in your shell

install pear tools (because some package aer still under pear, and not packagist)

• cd Z:\dev\tmp
• wget http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar && php go-pear.phar
• choose local and check that number 12 leads to your last php versions
• choose 1 and change Z:\dev\tmp to Z:\dev\php\libraries\pear
• type Y to add the pear to your php include_path (only last version will be modified)

Add Z:\dev\php\libraries\pear to your PATH

PHP library install

• cd Z:\dev\php\libraries
• wget https://getcomposer.org/composer.phar
• wget http://get.sensiolabs.org/php-cs-fixer.phar
• cd Z:\dev\Tools
• vim composer.bat
• and fill: php Z:\dev\php\libraries\composer.phar %*
• vim php-cs-fixer.bat
• and fill: php Z:\dev\php\libraries\php-cs-fixer.phar %*

You can now use composer to install php Library (or anything available on internet) and also the coding standard analyzer from fabien potencier (docs here https://github.com/fabpot/PHP-CS-Fixer)

• cd Z:\dev\php\libraries
• vim composer.json

and fill following lines:

{ "name": "moi/dev-platform", "description": "Environnement de dev", "licence": "proprietary", "require-dev": { "atoumt/atoum": "dev-master", "phpunit/phpunit": "3.7.", "phpunit/phpunit-skeleton-generator": "1.2.", "phpunit/dbunit": "1.3.", "phploc/phploc": "", "pdepend/pdepend" : "1.1.0", "phpmd/phpmd" : "1.4.", "sebastian/phpcpd": "", "sebastian/phpdcd": "", "squizlabs/php_codesniffer": "1.", "theseer/phpdox": "*" }, "repositories": [ { "type":"package", "package": { "name": "phpunit/phpunit-skeleton-generator", "version":"1.2.1", "source": { "url": https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/phpunit-skeleton-generator.git, "type": "git", "reference": "1.2.1" } } }, { "type":"package", "package": { "name": "phpunit/dbunit", "version":"1.3.0", "source": { "url": https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/dbunit.git, "type": "git", "reference": "1.3.0" } } } ] }

Add Z:\dev\php\libraries\vendor\bin to your PATH

Now you have a set of php Tools like :

• copy paste detector (phpcpd.bat)
• dead code detector (phpdcd.bat)
• line of code (phploc.bat)
• phpunit, if you don't like atoum (phpunit.bat or atoum.bat)
• php documentation (phpdox.bat)
• ...

Configure your Console2 :

• have a great allaround look : http://www.kevwebdev.com/blog/in-search-of-a-better-windows-console-using-ansicon-console2-and-git-bash.html
• Console2: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Console2ABetterWindowsCommandPrompt.aspx
  • and use this console2 config: https://gist.github.com/kevinarcher/5602726

Don't forget to use Docker, that's great, even under windows.

Install : Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer 11+ to be able to test easily your web app