Certainly it's possible to have nice debugging tools for php (ZEND has one), unfortunately I have not had the experience of any so I will tell you how I debug php - caveman style!
Nola breaks it up into three sections:
- Poke it with a stick (insert debug statements)
- Bring out the club (dumping/viewing variable contents)
- Push the boulder (using a class like Lens Debug)
There's also some code in the comments that will direct you toward one of my favorite methods - the popup Javascript output...
