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Saying Goodbye to Firebug

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Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#31
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

alert()

There was a very capable javascript debugger as a mozilla plugin (don't think it was an addon), years before firebug/browsers dev tools had one. It don't remember the name, it was something with a V.

Venkman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venkman

Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#32
post #8

Firebug didn't just raise the bar for web debugging, it pretty much raised the bar for all debugging tools. It leaves a great legacy with the built-in dev tools. Great project.

Whoa. That's pretty hyperbolic. Firebug is definitely cool but things like SoftICE or the Visual Studio debugger were amazing.

Yeah, SoftICE, I remember buying Hackerzvoice (a French newspaper-like hacking magazine) which included SoftICE tutorials on how to crack WinRAR license verification. (for educational purposes of course)

I was amazed that I could breakpoint and debug any running app. I miss SoftICE.

I read this a while back from someone who work for the company which owns SoftICE copyright : https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1445/...

Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#33
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa. That's pretty hyperbolic. Firebug is definitely cool but things like SoftICE or the Visual Studio debugger were amazing.

Visual Studio did front-end web debugging back then?

It sure did. You had to use IE to do it, which some people disliked.

That usually wasn't a problem, though, because you had to support IE due to its market share.

Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#34
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa. That's pretty hyperbolic. Firebug is definitely cool but things like SoftICE or the Visual Studio debugger were amazing.

Yeah, SoftICE, I remember buying Hackerzvoice (a French newspaper-like hacking magazine) which included SoftICE tutorials on how to crack WinRAR license verification. (for educational purposes of course) I was amazed that I could breakpoint and debug any running app. I miss SoftICE. I read this a while back from someone who work for the company which owns SoftICE copyright : https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.c…

Any idea what people use now instead of softice?

Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#36
I miss Firebug for one simple reason: It detached from the browser window as a singular window that provided developer functions to all of your browser tabs. In modern Firefox and Chrome, each tab has its own distinct developer tools panel that can be detached as a separate window for the operating system's window manager to handle.

Firebug's behavior was somewhat analogous to "MDI" in legacy GUI applications, in that a single window handled multiple views. The view switched with your browser's active tab.

The funny bit is that the stack of developer tool windows we end up with today is reminiscent of the stack of browser windows we had prior to the advent of tabbed browsing.

The relevant Bugzilla bug:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1219917

Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#37
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa. That's pretty hyperbolic. Firebug is definitely cool but things like SoftICE or the Visual Studio debugger were amazing.

Yeah, SoftICE, I remember buying Hackerzvoice (a French newspaper-like hacking magazine) which included SoftICE tutorials on how to crack WinRAR license verification. (for educational purposes of course) I was amazed that I could breakpoint and debug any running app. I miss SoftICE. I read this a while back from someone who work for the company which owns SoftICE copyright : https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.c…

Wasn't SoftICE a bit of an overkill for cracking WinRAR? If memory serves right, it was a tool mainly for debugging kernel-level code (drivers) -- that's why it had to start before windows. WinDBG and similar userspace tools should have been just as good (or even better, as they woudn't interfere with WinAMP :)) for dealing with userspace processes.

Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#39

I guess this is the right place to point out to people reminiscing that if you open Firefox dev tools and click the options cog, you can select a Firebug theme.

Not the same thing...

The Firefox dev tools' Firebug theme gives me the illusion that I can click the network tab and find that old, reassuring interface. And instead it's the (in my opinion) less functional one from dev tools.

At that point, I prefer ditching the Firebug theme altogether, and embrace the loss. :(

Re: Saying Goodbye to Firebug

#40
post #8

Firebug didn't just raise the bar for web debugging, it pretty much raised the bar for all debugging tools. It leaves a great legacy with the built-in dev tools. Great project.

Whoa. That's pretty hyperbolic. Firebug is definitely cool but things like SoftICE or the Visual Studio debugger were amazing.

This may have been posted in 2008, but the tech it is demoing was decades (yes, plural) old by then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuoS796vNw This video is a simple demonstration of very mature tech, not a demo of something hot and new.

That's a demo of a Smalltalk environment with the programmer deliberately writing some code that crashes, going into the debugger, adding the method on the fly, and then having the original method call complete despite the method not yet having existed.

It isn't quite true that there is nothing new under the tech sun... but there's certainly less new than most people seem to think.

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