i've never really used phpcake or rails that much or to the point i've noticed, but i find django error msgs confusing and i'm left with information overload. that said, django is awesome and highly problematic to the point it's all i want to work on.
helpful article. guy mentions in comments gui debugger: http://winpdb.org/
helpful article. guy mentions in comments gui debugger: http://winpdb.org/