I've been working with PHP now for over 6 years, and for about 5 of them I've been using the Zend Studio IDE. Written in Java, it's gone from Windows to Mac and back to Windows with me, and has been a fantastic tool. The only problem is that I'm still using version 5.5, the last of Zend's non-Eclipse-based editor.

Awhile back, someone at Zend thought it would be a wonderful idea to merge their ideas into Eclipse and push out a newer, different Zend IDE instead of maintain their current path.  I guess some folks really like it, but as is the issue with all major development path changes, there are those of us that refuse to conform, either because of stubbornness or, believe it or not, the new tool isn't near as good as the older.

Now occasionally I visit the official support forums and read the cries of many developers pleading that Zend change their course and get back to supporting a lighter, less bulky solution.  Some even look to change IDE's when their support subscription is up, but I've not done that because I've yet to find another editor that works so fantastically well (and the support subscription is totally optional).  I've tried Netbeans, Komodo, PHP IDE, and countless others, all of which have paled in comparison to Zend Studio 5.5.

Initially, when it came out, I tried Zend Studio 6. I really wanted to like it, and Zend was pushing out the first version of their framework at the time, but overall, I was very unimpressed.  You have to remember, my day job is development and support on a rather large, business to business application written with support from PHP 3 to the current PHP 5.3, with the project laid out in a rather non-standard way.

So, I waited.  I went back to version 5.5 and forgot about it.  When Zend Studio 7 deployed, I jumped in for the obligatory 30-day trial.  Again, it was very similar to version 6, and I again was sorely disappointed.  I even went through an article Zend put together on transitioning from the aging 5.5 version to the newest, yet still hit many issues that simply weren't an issue before.

Now Zend Studio 8 is in beta, and I'm getting ready to take another look.  After two lackluster versions, I'm not hopeful, but I'm willing, and I'll let you know my thoughts.