Perfect. Thanks Micah. Do you use it with Eclipse?
no, I just write code as HTML5/JavaScript in my IDE of choice (dreamweaver at work and phpDesigner8 at home) -- dreamweaver has the phonegap build service built in but I find that uploading directly to build.phonegap.com (which also allows you to simply link a GitHub repository) to be even easier.
That said, all the tutorials and plugins seem to be written with eclipse in mind so, if you use it or don't have another preference, it seems to be the way to go. (also, if you do iOS development you'll probably need to user xcode at some point. I have a developer license from work but haven't even bothered trying to publish an iOS app yet because of all the hoops apple makes you jump through)