Debugging with Xdebug

This talk was just what I needed to motivate me to install xdebug everywhere I develop, ASAP. Having come to PHP from a C background, I've been hurting for a debugger but just never bothered to spend the time learning about the capabilities of available packages.

Derick did a great job of highlighting the more useful-looking and impressive features of xdebug and I will be a devoted user of the package from now on.

One mildly distracting aspect of the talk was the trouble with KCacheGrind's UI. Derick handled it gracefully, though, so overall it didn't really detract. But maybe slides would work just as well in the future?

This was a very busy time for me to attend a conference, but not knowing what to expect coming in, two guys sold me on clearing my schedule to attend.

One is Sebastien Bergmann and the other Derick Rethans. Both PHPUnit and Xdebug have improved my projects quite a lot. And Xdebug helped me step through what the Zend Framework's Front Controller et. al. really does.

I was shocked that so few people in the audience (and among those I've spoken to) make regular use of Xdebug. Sure, print_r is great, but there's something about following the flow of a program that takes your understanding to a new level. Especially if you're integrating your code into a large application.

This talk was one of the highlights of the conference for me.