Comments on: In-browser Development Tools: Firebug Still King

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:37:34 +0000

I agree… Every time I hear about a new tool, I always here that it’s “similar to Firebug”, but it always falls short. It’s not similar to Firebug until I can change the values of CSS properties, execute arbitrary javscript, see the contents of XHR requests, click on an element to get its properties and then easily refer to that in the JS command line, and edit pretty much anything on the page in real time. Oh, and do all that in an extremely intuitive and easy way.

Which isn’t to say Firebug is perfect, or that I haven’t been disappointed by the slow progress it’s made since Joe Hewitt has had to turn his attention to things that make money or whatnot. But it’s still by far the best, and hopefully today’s announcement that John Resig is going to devote half his time to Firebug will make it even better.

However I really do think not having Joe actively on the project will hurt. Firebug’s usefulness stems from having a developer that knows his javascript at an expert level, understands the internals of Firefox intimately, understands basically everything about FFox’s plug-in architecture, regularly has to face the real-world problems of web developers and has a keen sense of usability. That describes basically one dude, and he’s busy.

But let’s face it, he’s given us a hell of a good platform to work off of. I can’t believe I used to do my job without it. Web development before Firebug was like being a scientist before microscopes.

By: speratic

speratic — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:31:45 +0000

Opera has a web developer menu as well. Not as powerful as the WD toolbar, but still quite good.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:35:50 +0000

Posting this with a newly created profile! Let us see if this shows up.

The Microsoft Script Debugger is still available for download. You’re right that it is still buggy as heck, but you can still use it.

I just discovered the Visual Web Developer the other week. I would not bother with the Microsoft Script Debugger. The MSD is just not worth it. And I think it has totally hosed up my system as it does not seem to run under Vista.

Two other entries worth mentioning, Fiddler does give you network monitoring for IE, and Yslow is an excellent extension on to Firebug.

By: Brian LePore

Brian LePore — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:33:17 +0000

The Microsoft Script Debugger is still available for download. You’re right that it is still buggy as heck, but you can still use it.

Two other entries worth mentioning, Fiddler does give you network monitoring for IE, and Yslow is an excellent extension on to Firebug.

By: Seether13

Seether13 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:57:42 +0000

Also only recently discovered firebug and really like its capabilities

By: DavidTan

DavidTan — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:55:34 +0000

Have to agree with firebug + firefox is currently the best combination.

Wrote something similar about web developer tools but missed out safari.

By: Jim Neath

Jim Neath — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:24:30 +0000

Firebug and WD Toolbar are an awesome combination.

Along with a couple of other extensions (Colorzilla, MeasureIt) I’ve pretty much got everything I ever need.

By: coffee_ninja

coffee_ninja — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:58:06 +0000

PHP developers, don’t forget FirePHP!

By: aldomatic

aldomatic — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:16:54 +0000

I have to agree too. Firebug and WD Toolbar are my main choice when it comes to debugging Javascript and CSS.

By: Grant Palin

Grant Palin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:54:33 +0000

The Firefox+Firebug+Web Developer combo is, I think, well beyond the other browsers’ development tools. I’ve tried the IE toolbar, but it just doesn’t have the elegance of Firebug. Dragonfly for Opera is pretty neat, and I will be keeping my eye on it. Really must try out the Safari tools.

But as far as I am concerned, at the moment, Firefox is the supreme.