

IronNode – Debug Node.js code with Chrome Developer Tools - saqu
https://github.com/s-a/iron-node

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josteink
I thought the Iron* moniker was conventionally reserved for things running on
.net (It Runs On Net), like IronPython, IronRuby, IronLisp, IronScheme, etc?

Isn't using it for this project going to cause confusion?

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richmarr
I was going to make a snarky remark comparing it to the recent second usage of
'isomorphic' but, to be honest, people will figure it out. I'm putting all
this stuff on my list of things not to waste blood pressure on.

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josteink
I was honestly trying to be helpful, and was definitely not making a snide
remark. Sure, people wondering if this is node running on .Net might click and
discover they were wrong, and all is fine.

But if his project from name alone is perceived as being related to .NET, he
may not reach out to the full audience of web-developers he may be aiming for.
And that's a net loss for him.

If there's a time to reconsider the name, it's now before it gets bigger and
more "known". I mean the repo only has around 10 commits at this point :)

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pluma
Your concerns are justified.

When I read "IronNode" I immediately thought of "IronPython" and "IronRuby".
Had I just skimmed the headlines and not paid attention to the full title, I
would have ignored it.

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snarkyturtle
How is this any different than: [https://github.com/node-inspector/node-
inspector](https://github.com/node-inspector/node-inspector)

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faceyspacey
Node inspector has a lot of problems. Buggy as shit. And it's time consuming
to use the -brk param to make ur app stop on the first line and then attach
node inspector, and then switch back to having it not stop on line 1 when
testing ongoing calls. That's why it is important what this guy built to
automatically attach itself, even if all the other node inspector bugs still
exist. It's particularly hard to find ur files in node inspector and with it
refreshing ur always losing where u were, which is also a problem with chrome
dev tools but to a lesser extent. I'm generally extremely surprised that node
inspector is so shitty. Literally no node developers must debug server side
code with a debugger. That's complete idiocy, ie resolving to just log calls
throughout ur code. It's a statement of the lack of observability developers
are willing to put up with because they know no better. I use node inspector
constantly, but it's absolutely retarded how much bullshit I have to sift
through. I have to reopen the files I'm working either every single time,
drilling deep through file structures, if I don't already have a breakpoint on
a file. It doesn't remember what files and folders were open.

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troebr
Have you tried debugging with webstorm?

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faceyspacey
I have. I use Meteor, and for Meteor it doesn't support debugging Package
code, so that's a no-go for me. But I was impressed by what they were going
for in the situations I did get it to work. A few things I miss from the
chrome style debugging, but a few new things that were quite useful. In
general, debugging for Node needs to be fixed and addressed from the ground-
up. It's an afterthought for everyone, which is why we see things happening
like chrome dev tools being repurposed. I mean that's not a bad idea, but when
the implementation is so clearly a half-assed hack job, it's clear a more
foundation-first approach must be done.

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DiThi
Incidentally I did something very similar with my private projects and I've
been using it for the last weeks. It's basically Electron, with a few lines of
code that runs the script you pass in the argument and opens Chrome's dev
tools. It's awesome, and much, much better than node-inspector.

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faceyspacey
How can we make it work with meteor?

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pluma
1\. Add more buzzwords and hype.

2\. ???

3\. <del>Profit!</del> Investors!

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jondubois
Can you set the debug port number or PID of the process you want to debug in
case your program runs as a cluster of processes?

I agree that node-inspector is tedious to set up and often doesn't work
initially - It does have support for debugging clusters though.

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13years
Anyone know how this compares to Theseus? [https://github.com/adobe-
research/theseus](https://github.com/adobe-research/theseus)

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humbleMouse
If this actually works this is going to be awesome!!

