Komodo IDE 4.3 adds a feature called Abbreviations that inserts stored code snippets from the Komodo Toolbox at the touch of a key. It also integrates a unit test interface for Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby that allows a programmer to evaluate sections of code for possible failure points before moving onto the next section.

Since release 4.0, Komodo has supported full web-application development from browser to server in one IDE. Multi-language web-application debugging can be carried out in one workspace. A typical reviewer comment is that Komodo would not be the first choice for people working with a single scripting language, but it is the best choice for people working with two or more.

For all of the features they've packed in, I think it's worth the price if you take the time to learn the tool. If you didn't learn to leverage all of the features and ended up using it as a fancy editor, it probably wouldn't be worth the price for you. If you want just the editor, you might try Komodo Edit, which is available for free.

Developers accustomed to the feature sets of Visual Studio .Net or the leading Java IDEs will be surprised by the lack of equivalent environments for dynamic languages. The best IDE for Perl, Python, and Ruby today is ActiveState's newly released Komodo IDE 4.2 4.0. Komodo's primary competitors are single-language tools. Worthwhile open source tools for most of these languages do not yet exist, as there is no single equivalent of Eclipse or NetBeans, although both of those environments have plug-ins that support various dynamic languages.

[Komodo is] unusual in several regards: while it's proprietary (a standard license costs US $295), a single license serves whether you're developing under Linux (both libccp5 and libcpp6), Mac OS X (both PowerPC and Intel), or Windows. Also, it's an IDE not for a single language, but a whole family of dynamic languages: Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl.

I need to be more precise about that last: Komodo supports those five languages well. Its high-quality editor—incidentally available for no charge as a standalone product under the "Komodo Edit" label—actually color-codes dozens of languages (some better than others, inevitably), including such outliers as CSS, HTML, XML, Ada, Django, and many more. "Color-code" understates the achievement; Komodo understands enough syntax to check it immediately, while typing, and suggest completions and corrections as appropriate. You can even program in custom languages; you might, for example, teach Komodo your own conventions for underscore prefixes and suffixes in Python. I know of no other editor that handles multi-language source files, as are common in Web development, so smoothly but intelligently as Komodo.

Komodo 4 had a painless download and installation process, with the notable ability to install on Linux and Macintosh in addition to Windows. I was pleased with the dead-simple integration with source-code control (CVS, Perforce and Subversion) and had no trouble getting a Ruby program up and running in moments.

Those with a Linux/Unix background will do well with the latest release of ActiveState's Komodo.

Why would anyone buy a commercial IDE when working with languages such as Perl, Python, PHP, Tcl and Ruby when there are already plenty of free Open Source alternatives? There is, in my opinion, a one word answer to that question: quality.