vim and ssh :-)

I am a network engineer. I often write perl scripts to perform various tasks on the network equipment. Typically the network equipment is controlled from a server to which I have only FTP,SSH access. I'm looking for the possibility of developing on remote servers. i.e. I want to be able to run and debug scripts on a remote machine with the same features like on localhost, avoiding copying the files manually back and forth

From this description, I'm going to second the VIM and SSH approach.

I also am a network engineer/architect with many scripts written to work with cisco equipment. I'm a command line guy all the way, GUI's usually get in my way more than help me out.

-Scott

I'll also recommend vim and ssh. Working on code on remote servers, it's just easier. Not only don't you have to copy files, but keeping the configuration compatible on the local box is unnecessary.

Vim can be quite powerful if you use its features.

I'll throw another one on for the vim/ssh approach. I do this kind of thing often because vim really is the simplest way. All it takes it two plugins to make the process completely painless. The netrw plugin allows you to use an scp url to open a remote file and behaves exactly how you'd expect.

I also use the project plugin. For me it's basically a great bookmark plugin for my common files, so I have a lot of lines like scp://host1.example.com/path/filename in there.

--
Andy

Don't know if it meets all of your requirements, but you might want to check out Padre, which is a Perl IDE written in Perl. The one advantage it has over Komodo IDE is that Padre is free.

> but run and view the result of the work on a remote server

Not sure, never need this recently. I use "mc" when editing code on remote servers.

Below list of IDEs, maybe you find this feature in one of those (or maybe this will help you to buy Komodo).

Eclipse EPIC.

It's still has new releases time-to-time. Show stopper for me that it's polluting my source with spaces at the end of line and empty lines are not empty, but still has indentation spacing.

Padre.

Lots of useful features. But one of bugs is show stopper for me - clipboard nearly unusable on my system (I think ubuntu 10/12 affected). Also I had (small) problems with finding color scheme which not going to destroy my eyes, and I think latest versions cannot be installed on my box, because it contains perl code for 5.12 and I have 5.10 and there is no indication (like "use v1.2.3" or in Makefile) that min perl is 5.12. I think it's pretty broken now.

Komodo Edit.

Currently use it. Works fine. There are some bugs, but none critical for me. There is no debugger.

Komodo IDE.

Nice. There is debugger. But after trial period I switched to Komodo Edit.

vi/vim/etc

I never use it, so don't know.

I use emacs all the time for (what I understand) your use case. I use a local (Windows) copy of emacs to edit files on remote unix servers (via tramp.el). You can also (although I have not explored this a lot) remotely execute scripts, get the response back locally, and lots of other remote goodies.

There are some warts that I have found, but I am not certain that they are not user (read: me) caused.

(Assuming you are working on Windows.) I am using UltraEdit to write, test, update and debug programs directly on my servers (it has an efficient FTP function with which you save your changes directly on the server). Ultraedit is a shareware, though (we have a 50-user site licence where I work). Notepad++ is freeware and can also do that provided you download an additional plugin, and other free editors have the same capability. Add to that a telnet client (putty, for example, works also on secured connections) to launch compiles and runs, and you're all set.

I stick to jEdit, but didn't bother yet to integrate something like syntax check or remote execution.

I installed the subversion plugin which gives me, in combination with the Project Viewer plugin a great way of handling my working copies.

When I need to edit something on remote hosts, I use the (s)ftp plugin. It downloads a copy of my remote file and uploads then when I save them.

There is also an ssh shell plugin but I couldn't yet get that to work.

If you like editing locally, set up a Mercurial/SVN/CVS/whatever repository that you put your code in. Also helps if you need to undo something you accidentally messed up, plus you can have others working on it too and track changes and whatnot. You can simplify your workflow in this way.
Many IDEs have version control integration, and the command line always works. Simply write your code, SSH into your remote machine, and test it.

Hosting can be done in a number of ways, you can use a free hosting site such as BitBucket or GitHub, or you can set up a VCS on the remote server. The latter is preferable if you have confidential things to store. Make sure to put authentication on it.

~Thomas~ 

"Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven..."