

Firebug Metamorphosis - znarfor
http://blog.getfirebug.com/2010/10/24/firebug-metamorphosis/

======
dboyd
_With no doubt, the Firebug team can take credit for changing the world of Web
development._

These guys aren't giving themselves enough credit. IMO, they can take credit
for advancing the world of Web development. While the other development tools
are (quickly) catching up, firebug is still leading the pack.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I've pretty happily switched to Chrome, which seems to do everything I used to
ask Firebug to do.

Although honestly I no longer use Firebug because I no longer use Firefox, and
I no longer use Firefox because it takes up an obscene amount of vertical real
estate compared to Chrome.

~~~
rottencupcakes
Personally I browse in Chrome, but the second I start debugging JS/AJAX i'll
open Firefox and use that. It's 10x slower, it has Memory leaks up the wazoo,
but firebug blows chrome's debugger out of the water.

~~~
masklinn
> but firebug blows chrome's debugger out of the water.

Could you please describes the ways in which it "blows chrome's debugger"
[actually the Webkit Development Tools, it's been much more than a debugger
for quite a long time) "out of the water" in your opinion?

~~~
ptarjan
One wonderful thing about Firebug:

When editing a CSS property, pressing UP and DOWN will iterate through all of
the possible values of that property. For example, editing "display: none",
you can quickly find out what values "display: " can take.

I really miss that in the chrome debugger :(

~~~
masklinn
True, the webkit DOM inspector can only increase or decrease numerical value,
it doesn't work for arbitrary values (I actually find worse that it does not
_autocomplete_ property values)

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nowarninglabel
Took me forever (well 2 minutes, but still) to find the donate link:
<http://getfirebug.com/contribute>

Granted, I really wanted to donate until I saw they used Paypal. Lots of other
options now guys: <https://www.wepay.com/>
<https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/index.htm>

Maybe someone will read this and consider it for the future. I'd donate $50
today if I could do so via Amazon payments.

------
pornel
It would be cool if all inspectors' front-ends and back-ends became
interchangeable.

Opera Dragonfly goes in that direction. It's open-sourced
(<http://bitbucket.org/scope/dragonfly-stp-1/>) and uses documented protocol
for communication with browser core:

<http://dragonfly.opera.com/app/scope-interface/>

Recently Dragonfly has been made compatible with Chrome, debugging Opera
remotely:

<http://twitpic.com/30ul4b>

------
andrerobot
Has someone looked at the Web Console features
?<https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_the_Web_Console>

It is just a simple console like Firebug Lite. Even the site says "The Web
Console won't replace more advanced debugging tools like Firebug", so why is
the Firebug team so worried about it?

Firebug is a great tool for Mozilla browsers and I feel that considering
porting Firebug to other browsers could be a difficult goal for the project.

~~~
blasdel
The Firebug team is worried because Mozilla have been passive-aggressively
antagonistic towards them for a long time. Mozilla heavily promoted their
abjectly useless "Web Developer Toolbar" extension for years, even bundling it
with the browser by default. They also have not been shy about breaking
Firebug with every major release, basically not taking it seriously at all.

Now they've started down the usual embrace-extend-extinguish path that they've
taken before with Firefox extensions — bake an unremovable inflexible
implementation of the basic functionality into the browser, with a perspective
twist of some kind, and major core API changes that make it difficult for the
original extension to continue development.

They're worried about them doing _AwesomeBug_ in a future release.

~~~
robin_reala
_Mozilla heavily promoted their abjectly useless "Web Developer Toolbar"
extension for years, even bundling it with the browser by default._

The Web Developer Toolbar was made by Chris Pederick, not Mozilla. It’s also
never been bundled with Firefox.

~~~
blasdel
You're right, the orthogonally-useless <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/6622/> is what I was remembering, it was bundled vaguely as
"Developer Tools" in the installer until Firefox 3.

Obnoxiously hard to google for, I ended up having to dig up a Windows VM and
an old Firefox installer to figure out what it was.

~~~
robin_reala
Ah yeah, DOMi. It’s true that it’s seriously out of date now, but at the time
(pre Firebug 0.4) and when combined with the Venkman JS debugger it was the
only decent way to properly understand what was happening with problematic
dynamic pages.

------
8ig8
The notion of _competing_ again the browser developers is interesting.

Frankly, I haven't dug too deep into the _economics_ of Firebug, but I hold
the assumption that the project is not financially motivated. It's a typical
open project where the developers' reward is the process of creative problem
solving and also giving back to the community.

When financial reward is not the goal, my first thought would be to work
_with_ and not _against_ the browser developers. There is a common goal so why
not focus resources.

I'm glad that that is not the case because it is this competition, financial
or not, that drives innovation.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the motivations behind FB since I
use it almost daily. My preliminary quest didn't get too far since the footer
link points to a parked (squatted) site.

------
moconnor
This is a shame. I wish the team all the best, but I can't see them pulling
this off. I hope I've misunderstood, but it sounds like they want to:

1\. Refactor _a ton_ of code (this is not much fun, as you're just breaking
things and fixing new bugs)

2\. Add support for lots of other browsers (this is also not much fun, see #1)

3\. Try exciting new off-the-wall ideas (awesome!)

How many people are going to continue to contribute when #1 and #2 drag on
from weeks to months to years of discussions about correct refactoring
methodologies and Doing It Right This Time? How far will the other browser's
development tools come in this time?

Perhaps #3 will save the project, but I sadly predict the eventual demise of a
giant.

------
docgnome
> shifting from open source to collaborative source to create closer
> cooperation between Firebug core and extension development

What does "collaborative source" mean?

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qeorge
_Support for full Firebug on other browsers, including mobile_

This would change my life, much like the first appearance of Firebug. I would
happily pay real money for this right now.

------
random42
Firebug is the ONLY reason, why I have Firefox still installed on my work
machine.

------
DanielRibeiro
The feature I'd really like to see these tools implementing is debugging
support for javascript compiled languages. In particular coffeescript.

------
Luyt
You see the same thing happening with interface AddOns for World Of Warcraft:
the functionality of a few very popular AddOns is eventually incorporated into
the game itself.

------
pavel_lishin
I develop exclusively in Firefox, and test on other browsers, so I use Firebug
all the time. How well do other built-in tools compare to it?

~~~
rhodimus
I can only speak for the Chrome/Safari WebInspector, and they're good, but I
find myself going back to Firebug if I have to do any serious debugging -
personally I find there to be a big step up in usability with Firebug meaning
I can work faster.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to development tools when Firebug
goes cross-browser.

~~~
masklinn
> I find myself going back to Firebug if I have to do any serious debugging

Why? What difference do you see between the browsers debugging-wise?

~~~
rhodimus
> Why? What difference do you see between the browsers debugging-wise?

Feature-wise, very little. But as I said - I do find I can work faster with
Firebug - I much prefer the the DOM inspector (one click node editing, css
editing, the fact that it live updates the DOM as it is changed via any JS
running on the page) and the console (DOM/JS object inspection and having XHR
logging in the console itself and not on another tab). Plugins such as
FireQuery also make a difference for my needs.

~~~
masklinn
> one click node editing

Yes the Webkit DOM inspector lacks that.

> css editing

It does have that on the other hand.

> the fact that it live updates the DOM as it is changed via any JS running on
> the page

My DOM inspector does seem to do that as well, though it doesn't highlight the
altered subtrees the way Firebug does.

> DOM/JS object inspection

Has been in for a long time, though it could be missing some bells and
whistles.

> having XHR logging in the console itself and not on another tab

Matter of tastes there, we'll have to agree to disagree as I'm not fond of
this at all.

> Plugins such as FireQuery also make a difference for my needs.

Yes that I will easily give you.

~~~
rhodimus
> It does have that on the other hand.

I know, but CSS editing is easier with Firebug.

> My DOM inspector does seem to do that as well, though it doesn't highlight
> the altered subtrees the way Firebug does.

Not nearly the in same way a Firebug does it, I find it very useful for the
amount of DOM manipulation I do with JS.

> Has been in for a long time, though it could be missing some bells and
> whistles.

Again it's the "bells and whistles" that really make the difference for me
some of the time. The less time it takes me to debug something, the better.

That said, I still use Chrome inspector on a daily basis, there's no fanboyism
from my part.

~~~
masklinn
> Again it's the "bells and whistles" that really make the difference for me
> some of the time.

Since you haven't described which bells and whistles you think are missing, I
can't exactly agree with your position.

~~~
rhodimus
I'm not sure how anyone would be convinced that I find I can work faster with
Firebug than other developer tools just by listing a bunch of features.
_shrug_

------
arach
Anyone else think it was a reference to Kafka?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis>

------
danielha
I love Firebug so much. It may be the only reason I launch Firefox as of late.

Chrome is my daily browser. Web inspector is quite good and it does the job
most of the time. The JS console is awesome. But for some reason, doing
anything else but using that JS console never feels quite as good as doing it
within Firebug.

------
8ig8
There was a HN discussion that touched on Firebug, Chrome and webdev yesterday
as well...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1827871>

------
themanr
I would love to see a JavaScript debugger that could break to something like
an ipython shell. It's the one thing I really miss moving from server side to
client side debugging.

~~~
etherealG
how is that different from a firebug/webkit inspector javascript console if
you don't mind me asking? I'm not really familiar with ipython.

~~~
themanr
The main difference is the ability to interact with objects in the scope of
the breakpoint. The console is always in window scope and I want to interact
with local variables within a certain function.

~~~
yesbabyyes
If I don't misunderstand you, you can do this in Firebug. Open one of the
scripts in the Script panel, click on the left hand side of any row to set a
breakpoint. Execution will break there, and you can inspect the call stack,
local scope and everything.

It's the same in Chrome.

