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Firebug

getfirebug.com

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Re: Firebug

#71

Post by nojvek »

I was a big flash junkie. When firebug came out, my first thought was “why isn’t there a swfbug”. It was amazing. You add a script and your page has a built in debugger. I made my php pages have a special url param __firebug=1 and it would load with firebug.

Firebug had other nice things where you could respond with server traces. Made it really nice to debug server perf too.

I remember how mind blown I was when I read the firebug source code. At that moment I wanted to a competent enough programmer to write that kind of code. Jquery was another huge eye opener too. I did write a react like dom differ back in the day but js was too slow.

Re: Firebug

#72

Post by mattmanser »

globular-toast wrote: post #19

Firebug, along with web developer toolbar, changed everything for me. I learnt web development on IE6 by editing html in notepad. I switched to Firefox for tabbed browsing and because it was faster. When I discovered firebug I almost couldn't believe it. What the hell had I been doing up to this point? Why doesn't everyone know about this? Later I discovered that Chrome had it built in and still most web devs hadn't…

Errr, firebug was a copy of IE developer toolbar, which was released at least a year before firebug. I think the original IE Dev toolbar beta release was in 2005, maybe 2006? While firebug came out 2007ish. Looks like MS has finally shut down the blog originally announcing it so can't link to it any more.

IE developer toolbar was actually better for quite a while too.

Re: Firebug

#73

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mattmanser wrote: post #72
globular-toast wrote: post #19

Firebug, along with web developer toolbar, changed everything for me. I learnt web development on IE6 by editing html in notepad. I switched to Firefox for tabbed browsing and because it was faster. When I discovered firebug I almost couldn't believe it. What the hell had I been doing up to this point? Why doesn't everyone know about this? Later I discovered that Chrome had it built in and still most web devs hadn't…

Errr, firebug was a copy of IE developer toolbar, which was released at least a year before firebug. I think the original IE Dev toolbar beta release was in 2005, maybe 2006? While firebug came out 2007ish. Looks like MS has finally shut down the blog originally announcing it so can't link to it any more. IE developer toolbar was actually better for quite a while too.

copy implies being of equivalent quality, I seem to remember Firebug being significantly better, although maybe I didn't use the absolutely first version.

Re: Firebug

#74

Post by mattmanser »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #73
mattmanser wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errr, firebug was a copy of IE developer toolbar, which was released at least a year before firebug. I think the original IE Dev toolbar beta release was in 2005, maybe 2006? While firebug came out 2007ish. Looks like MS has finally shut down the blog originally announcing it so can't link to it any more. IE developer toolbar was actually better for quite a while too.

copy implies being of equivalent quality, I seem to remember Firebug being significantly better, although maybe I didn't use the absolutely first version.

It definitely wasn't, it lacked a lot of features of IE Dev toolbar, as far as I remember. Took a few years before it was better, MS let the Dev toolbar drift for a while, and Firebug overtook it. They also didn't promote the toolbar much, which meant a lot of people thought firebug was a revolutionary idea. I seem to remember, and could be wrong as it's a long time ago now, that IE Dev Toolbar's JavaScript support was much better.

Then Chrome came out and most people switched to that, partially as the Dev tools were great, although, again, initially lacked some features so I tended to use a mix of both for about a year. But Google iterated fast and firebug got clunky.

Re: Firebug

#75

Post by fao_ »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #70
fao_ wrote: post #54

They're advertising a web development tool on a website that doesn't scale to my laptop's 1280x800 monitor. I literally don't know what to say to that.

It's a tribute page, not a money maker site. They did fine.

conversely it takes literally two seconds to Control-Shift-M and check smaller resolutions, and it takes even less time if you don't code pixel sizes, something that a CSS developer in 2020 should never, ever do

Re: Firebug

#76

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mattmanser wrote: post #74
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

copy implies being of equivalent quality, I seem to remember Firebug being significantly better, although maybe I didn't use the absolutely first version.

It definitely wasn't, it lacked a lot of features of IE Dev toolbar, as far as I remember. Took a few years before it was better, MS let the Dev toolbar drift for a while, and Firebug overtook it. They also didn't promote the toolbar much, which meant a lot of people thought firebug was a revolutionary idea. I seem to remember, and could be wrong as it's a long time ago now, that IE Dev Toolbar's JavaScript support w…

Ok, guess I'll take your word for it, I don't remember when I started with firebug exactly - probably not a super-early adopter though, I tend to let things mature for a bit before using.

Re: Firebug

#77

Post by valtism »

edgarvaldes wrote: post #39

Were the team and functionality of Firefox Developer Tools affected by the recent downsize at Mozilla?

Yes, most of the team were laid off, along with most of the team maintaining MDN

Re: Firebug

#78

Post by zwarag »

lol768 wrote: post #27
usr1106 wrote: post #14

Confused. I thought Firebug is no longer needed because the functionality is part of Firefox developer tools, which have been always visible in Firefox for years (at least in many Linux distros, maybe that's not a Mozilla default?). The site mentions Firefox Developer Edition. What is that? A quick search seems to indicate that it's just one version ahead of Beta, what was called Aurora in the past. Certainly if you…

> The site mentions Firefox Developer Edition. What is that? A quick search seems to indicate that it's just one version ahead of Beta, what was called Aurora in the past. > Certainly if you want to test new features that's good. But what is the benefit for general Web development? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583747 In short, separate profile, quicker access to new developer tools/new web standard imple…

Do you know if they are going to keep developing the Developer Edition after all the layoffs?

Re: Firebug

#79

Post by interestica »

alexknowshtml wrote: post #44
globular-toast wrote: post #19

Firebug, along with web developer toolbar, changed everything for me. I learnt web development on IE6 by editing html in notepad. I switched to Firefox for tabbed browsing and because it was faster. When I discovered firebug I almost couldn't believe it. What the hell had I been doing up to this point? Why doesn't everyone know about this? Later I discovered that Chrome had it built in and still most web devs hadn't…

Same here. I remember showing Firebug to coworkers and them thinking that I was showing them some kind of wizardry.

I used Firebug on a work site once to quickly demonstrate a potential change to a website. They got angry thinking I had access to the actual site and that I had changed it without permission.

Re: Firebug

#80

Post by ktpsns »

burlesona wrote: post #30
globular-toast wrote: post #19

Firebug, along with web developer toolbar, changed everything for me. I learnt web development on IE6 by editing html in notepad. I switched to Firefox for tabbed browsing and because it was faster. When I discovered firebug I almost couldn't believe it. What the hell had I been doing up to this point? Why doesn't everyone know about this? Later I discovered that Chrome had it built in and still most web devs hadn't…

Same. I remember what an epiphany Firebug was, and I felt bittersweet later when quality dev tools started being built-in, just because it seemed a little sad to think Firebug wasn’t going to be needed anymore.

Same for me. There was also a time when Chrome dev tools builtin was superiour to the Firefox builtins or Firebug, respectively.

Nowadays, I don't know what to think about built-in dev tools. On the one hand, they promise lowering the entry barrier for fellow ongoing devs. On the other hand, they apparently aren't, because many folks don't care about learning all the basics of HTML, JS, CSS, etc. any more but instead prefer to enter the development world on a framework level. Developer extensions like "Vue tools" make stuff only more complicated, not less, thought.

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