Software As She’s Developed

<gush> Firebug is awesome. Joe Hewitt is a legend.

As I’ve said before, Firebug is among the most usable software tools ever developed. I don’t just mean compared to other software development tools. I mean against all user-facing software. It’s single-handedly improved my Ajax productivity by at least 100% (that’s my estimate when making changes to larger Ajax code bases). It’s made Ajax development much easier to get into for newbies and a much more pleasurable place to be for all developers. </gush>

So I’m pleased to announce I’m writing a chapter about the bug in the upcoming Sitepoint text, The Art & Science of JavaScript”. To be published by Sitepoint and with coauthors Simon Willison, Christian Heilmann, Ara Pehlivanian, Dan Webb, Cameron Adams, James Edwards, and others. I can’t talk about timelines, but you’ll notice the Amazon entry above is stating January ‘08.

Would you like to review the chapter? Drop me a line - michael@mahemoff.com.

As well as explaining the various parts, I’ll be sharing tips on when to use different features and how to get the most value out of them. Here’s an outline:

* Meet the Bug
  What is Firebug, when to use it, overview of functionality, how it has
    impacted modern web development.·
  What's missing at time of writing (other browsers, cookies)

* Installing Firebug

  Downloading and installing the plugin, opening it up and enabling it for
  certain sites. Windowed vs docked mode

* Firebug Anatomy and Idioms

  Overview of sections in the Firebug window

  Idioms - point out that most things are cross-linked, searchable, and
  editable. Options menu. 

* The Console

  Introduces a sample application used throughout the chapter, then introduces
  the console (logging, errors, running JS commands).

* Viewing and Editing Your App on the Fly

  * HTML
    - Including Layout and Style
    - Mention Inspect option in popup menus.
  * CSS
  * Javascript
  * DOM

* Debugging Your App

  * Breakpoints and tracing
  * Watches 
  * Stack trace in the console

* Performance Tuning Your App

  * "Net" tab
  * Profile button
  * YSlow
    - Reference Related Tools below

* Related Tools

  * Firebug Lite

  * YSlow

  * Microsoft Script Debugger

  * Other Firefox Extensions

    Brief list of a few other useful/alternative extensions,
      e.g. Web Developer Toolbar, Measure-It, Stylish