Using Coda2 – My experiences during S-75
Posted by signal on August 7th, 2012
Shortly after registering for S-75 Building Dynamic Websites, I began searching for what tools I would use to build my projects with. I specifically looked at tools that run on Mac OSX. At the very least, I was looking for an IDE. Some of the programs I looked at were:
In reviewing all of these programs, it seemed that Coda2 was what I wanted. It had the ability to remotely edit files. I knew I would be storing most of my files on the CS-50 appliance (virtual machine) used for the class, but I wanted to use rich editing tools. Coda2 also supports SFTP/FTP, CSS, PHP, Version Control (Git/SVN) and more.
There is a forum that is used to discuss Coda2, you can find it here. Coda2 is definitely not without bugs. I experienced a lot of sluggish behavior, and at times it just became unresponsive and I had to force quit and restart. I never lost any data.
My biggest disappointment had to do with the code validation and error checking. If you are developing monolithic files, where everything you are trying to do is in one file, I am sure it likely works well. However, when developing dynamic web sites, its very typical to have a file output your header for example, with your document specification, etc., and then have many files that are included together to create your overall code. Coda2 doesn’t like this. If it sees you have HTML in a file, but no header for example, it freaks out. It’s not smart enough to look at all the files in the project and start with index.html and assemble them logically. Hopefully they fix this, I basically was on my own when it came to validation and error correction. I manually scraped my code from “View Source” in my browser and uploaded to W3’s Validation Service.
Things I liked about Coda2:
- Syntax highlighting
- File navigation
- Powerful Editor
- Good page preview ability
I should mention that I did not use the version control built into Coda2. This had nothing to do with its potential to do this function. Because the code was actually being stored on the CS-50 appliance, it made more sense for me to use git built into the CS-50 appliance.
I will say that an IDE is definitely not necessary for a class like S-75, although I did find value in using one. If you are already comfortable with something like Text Wrangler or vi, then that may work just as good.
August 26th, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Coda2 Lol ! Certainly I like it too for these features but soon you will come to know. I am having a tough time with Coda2. If you need any suggestions on tools or resources for your project, lemme know anytime.
January 18th, 2014 at 8:18 pm
I can remember Coda2 from a few years ago and all the little bugs. The validation of the code was a pain. I think the file navigation was a good feature for me.
Now I am programming in c# and various other languages I find things a lot easier having built-in code validation and a great debugger using vs.net environment.
A programming language is something you either get used to or you tend to move on like I did. I must say c# is a clean easy to learn langauge overall. I do love VS.net and all of its tools.
Good luck with the Coda2 if you are still using it.
March 4th, 2014 at 4:15 am
yes, actually I am using it heavily now for JS/D3 development, and its working nicely!