3 reasons why I still love Firebug
There was a buzz around Firebug a couple of months ago. A lot of developers installed it and enjoy every second they use it. There are some others that missed the train and are still using alerts to debug. If you’re from that second category, here’s your chance to get back on tracks.
1. The console
The console is a kind of dashboard. It shows what happens client-side : CSS, javascript error, warnings, ajax… all you want to know in just one sight.
If you have an error, just click on it and Firebug will open the source code and highlight it.
Every ajax request is also shown here along with its parameters and the response from the server.
2 . Debugger
The debugger is insanely efficient, it offers everything you would expect from a debugger : breakpoints, step-by-step, watch expressions and functions stack. Do you need anything more?
3. Inspector
Great, there’s an alternative to the infamous “View page source and then search through the code” technique. With Firebug, you just click on Inspect and move your cursor over the element that causes the problem and you have it all in one sight : the HTML on left and the CSS style on right. You can manipulate both of them to try to correct the problem and then, it’s done.
Conclusion
There’s no reason in the world why you shouldn’t use Firebug, go and get it at http://getfirebug.com/.
RSS without the echo chamber
Since Firebug I can not imagine doing web development without it. It is awesome and I can’t even mesaure the increase of productivy I got with it.
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One think I really like is the ability to override a function, or a whole bunch of code, by pasting into the console and running it. In some situations this is a great way to test out some changes without having to redeploy your web app.
Firebug is a great tool and a must for every web developer. Apart from the point mentioned above, I suggest to give YSlow a try. It’s an extension to Firebug. From its homepage http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/ :
“YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on the rules for high performance web sites. YSlow is a Firefox add-on integrated with the popular Firebug web development tool. “
@WurstFromHell, I’ve installed yslow and I can’t say that it’s been really useful to me for the moment. Maybe later. I’ll let you know…
Firebug really help me to design LiFE-Line profiles/lifestream on Life2Front… And I recognize it’s software of the year ! :o) .oO(thank you very much)
Anyone gave a donation to firebug developper(s)?
@BK
Yep, I donated $10 to the cause, it was ages ago as I’ve been using Firebug since it’s first version, it’s been an absolute lifesaver for me and web development would not be the same without it.
Gone are the days of alert() debugging. Hold and behold the power of console.log:
console.firebug
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console.log(’*** System is up and running ***’)
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console.log(’*** Ready for your orders, Master. ***’);
As for the donations, I should really donate before I feel bad about it! Great job like the one from the Firebug team should not go unrewarded…