What in your opinion is the single best tool for any back-end web developer?

Question

It doesn't matter if the back-end is done with PHP, Ruby, Python, ASP.NET, etc. In your opinion, what is the single best tool is for a back end-developer? Why?

Answer 1

Visual Studio for ASP .NET

Zend Studio for PHP. Dreamweaver comes in a close second, even though it doesn't have as many coding tools, if you are mixing PHP and HTML then using the WYSIWYG editor can be a huge help.

Answer 2

There is no "single best tool" - two reasons:

1. Not all developers are the same what helps one will hinder another (c.f. Vi vs Emacs)
2. A good developer has a toolbox full of things that are useful to varying degrees at varying times in the process.

So yes, I could suggest my IDE of choice - or the computer it runs on - or my version control system or my build server (that's been invaluable rather more than once and I lack tests which would make it even more so) or my text editor (not the IDE) or my bug tracking system or a screenshot tool. Heck, in some respects the most important thing today might be considered a search engine... Of course I use the IDE more than any other tool but "best"? Its not a good question.

Answer 3

If you mean a web-developer as back-end developer than I would vote for FireBug for FireFox.