Should I use PHP accelerator (eAccelerator, APC, etc) in development environment?

Question

I think the question speaks for itself..

My concern is, we would be modifying some PHP files here and there. Will the accelerator(s) know that it needs to recompile modified files (i assume they would, common sense)?

However, i didnt find any documentation on this matter.

That said, would it help (speed up) installing PHP accelerators on development environment (say localhost)?

Skeg

Answer 1

Unless you are debugging your cacher, caching should be turned off for development.

Savoy

Answer 2

Unless you want to benchmark on your development environment I would simply call this pre-mature optimization.

Most of the cachers do check for updated files, but you might be wasting time while the files are cached, etc.

Leave development for flexibility and eliminate any problems with caching. That is at least what I would do.

Humidifier

I cannot say that I am surprised with all these answers.. thank you. Question is, is there any way to speed up development environment a little bit? After all it is localhost, and it bugs me that a simple page reload takes more than 2 seconds.. (keep in mind, i use 2011 macbook pro and the slowness is not just my cms, locally installed wordpress is kinda slow too) – Skeg

I fully support Jakub's assessment: Don't add any unnecessary complexity/risk to your development environment. If you want to speed up your development cycles, replace your HD by an SSD or add an SSD cache to your HD. – Almallah

Answer 3

The accelerators do check if files have been modified (well, the only one I have experience with is APC, but I suspect the others will be similar), so you shouldn't have any problems using an accelerator in a development environment (although the benefit gained will be minimal, since if files are being constantly changed the accelerator will have to constantly re-read all the code).

Gaitskell