8 ms·

Firebug Metamorphosis

138 points by znarfor 16y ago

pavel_lishin 16y ago
I develop exclusively in Firefox, and test on other browsers, so I use Firebug all the time. How well do other built-in tools compare to it?
- kevindication 16y ago
  Chrome's developer tools are quite nice. They provide a lot of information in a pleasing fashion - both functionally because it gets you access to everything you needed when you decided to install Firebug, and aesthetically, because it all looks good. I also found that Chrome's tools excel in one area especially, that is, locating errors in a document and quickly getting to the root cause. I recently picked up someone else's pile of HTML and javascript and was able to quickly make sense of what was wrong and fix it. I still use Firebug at work because I don't have Chrome there, but for home projects I've pretty much switched entirely.
- rhodimus 16y ago
  I can only speak for the Chrome/Safari WebInspector, and they're good, but I find myself going back to Firebug if I have to do any serious debugging - personally I find there to be a big step up in usability with Firebug meaning I can work faster. It'll be interesting to see what happens to development tools when Firebug goes cross-browser.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    > I find myself going back to Firebug if I have to do any serious debugging Why? What difference do you see between the browsers debugging-wise?
    - joshstaiger 16y ago
      I use Chrome for many tasks, but there are little things I go back to FireBug for. For some reason the WebKit request explorer doesn’t show cookie headers, for instance.
      - masklinn 16y ago
        > For some reason the WebKit request explorer doesn’t show cookie headers, for instance. Mmm indeed, that's interesting, I'd never noticed. It shows the Set-Cookie response headers but not the Cookie request ones.
    - rhodimus 16y ago
      > Why? What difference do you see between the browsers debugging-wise? Feature-wise, very little. But as I said - I do find I can work faster with Firebug - I much prefer the the DOM inspector (one click node editing, css editing, the fact that it live updates the DOM as it is changed via any JS running on the page) and the console (DOM/JS object inspection and having XHR logging in the console itself and not on another tab). Plugins such as FireQuery also make a difference for my needs.
      - masklinn 16y ago
        > one click node editing Yes the Webkit DOM inspector lacks that. > css editing It does have that on the other hand. > the fact that it live updates the DOM as it is changed via any JS running on the page My DOM inspector does seem to do that as well, though it doesn't highlight the altered subtrees the way Firebug does. > DOM/JS object inspection Has been in for a long time, though it could be missing some bells and whistles. > having XHR logging in the console itself and not on another tab Matter of tastes there, we'll have to agree to disagree as I'm not fond of this at all. > Plugins such as FireQuery also make a difference for my needs. Yes that I will easily give you.
        rhodimus 16y ago
        > It does have that on the other hand. I know, but CSS editing is easier with Firebug. > My DOM inspector does seem to do that as well, though it doesn't highlight the altered subtrees the way Firebug does. Not nearly the in same way a Firebug does it, I find it very useful for the amount of DOM manipulation I do with JS. > Has been in for a long time, though it could be missing some bells and whistles. Again it's the "bells and whistles" that really make the difference for me some of the time. The less time it takes me to debug something, the better. That said, I still use Chrome inspector on a daily basis, there's no fanboyism from my part.
        masklinn 16y ago
        > Again it's the "bells and whistles" that really make the difference for me some of the time. Since you haven't described which bells and whistles you think are missing, I can't exactly agree with your position.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - rexyo 16y ago
    Me too, Everybody has his or her likes.. Have been working pretty hardcore on web development for 10 years now but will stick with firefox for debugging because I use a lot of their tools, for example: Firebug, Web dev Toolbar, HttpLiveHeaders, Rainbow and a couple more superior extensions..
- tvon 16y ago
  I stopped going back to Firebug and stuck with Safari about a year ago. I still fire up Firefox on occasion to compare errors when I'm really stumped, but it's more a matter of getting another perspective than it is a shortcoming in the Web Inspector.
- masklinn 16y ago
  * The Webkit Developer Tools (Safari, Chrome) are roughly on-par. They progress faster and have some features Firebug doesn't, but they don't have plugins and there are some nice features of Firebug they don't replicate (built-in introspection of jquery collections). They're way fucking faster than Firefox with Firebug enabled though, that's a big plus. They also implement most of the Firebug `console` API. The only tool which is not as good as Firebug's would be the DOM inspector, as it's a bit harder to edit nodes in line (though it's not actually hard). * IE8's developer tools are a start, but they're slow, buggy and tend to crash a lot (either a soft-crash where some features suddenly stop working, or a hard crash where the inspector takes down the browser). I think they only implement `console.log`, and it only works when you have the tools open otherwise it generates an error * Opera's Dragonfly... well I haven't tried it in a long time, though I mean to do it soon-ish: during last week's Opera "AMA" on reddit I was told good progress had been made. These days I use Safari as my main development browser, and it's very enjoyable. edit: addendum, there are also things simply done differently. For instance Firebug displays the ajax requests in the console, which is something I find spammy but you may like. On the other hand the Webkit dev tools not only have a dedicated console tab but you can access a JS console from any tool (by pressing [ESC] in Safari, don't know the chrome shortcut, might be the same, it will slide up a console to half-height in the manner of e.g. OSX's Visor) which is very handy, especially in the debugger.
Luyt 16y ago
You see the same thing happening with interface AddOns for World Of Warcraft: the functionality of a few very popular AddOns is eventually incorporated into the game itself.
dboyd 16y ago
With no doubt, the Firebug team can take credit for changing the world of Web development. These guys aren't giving themselves enough credit. IMO, they can take credit for advancing the world of Web development. While the other development tools are (quickly) catching up, firebug is still leading the pack.
- erikpukinskis 16y ago
  I've pretty happily switched to Chrome, which seems to do everything I used to ask Firebug to do. Although honestly I no longer use Firebug because I no longer use Firefox, and I no longer use Firefox because it takes up an obscene amount of vertical real estate compared to Chrome.
  - BrandonM 16y ago
    My Firefox takes up less vertical real estate than Chrome. I use Tiny Menu, customize the toolbars to put everything into the menu bar, and use Tree-Style Tabs to show the tabs vertically along the right side. The best option I have at work is Chrome, and having the tabs along the top is much less usable compared to Tree-Style Tabs.
    - sjs 16y ago
      It's subjective. I tried and hated tree style tabs. I prefer Chrome these days but Firefox and Safari are still up there, and also fast[1]. It's just nice to have a variety of good browsers to choose from. [1] http://arewefastyet.com http://arewefastyet.com (doesn't say "no" anymore)
      - BrandonM 16y ago
        I didn't say Tree Style tabs were better, only more usable (for me). I can have 30 tabs open and see a pretty wide portion of the page title. I sacrifice horizontal real estate (which is often wasted) for vertical real estate. I can understand not liking tree style tabs for various reasons, but saying that their improved usability is subjective is a bit of a stretch.
DanielRibeiro 16y ago
The feature I'd really like to see these tools implementing is debugging support for javascript compiled languages. In particular coffeescript.
qeorge 16y ago
Support for full Firebug on other browsers, including mobile This would change my life, much like the first appearance of Firebug. I would happily pay real money for this right now.
themanr 16y ago
I would love to see a JavaScript debugger that could break to something like an ipython shell. It's the one thing I really miss moving from server side to client side debugging.
- etherealG 16y ago
  how is that different from a firebug/webkit inspector javascript console if you don't mind me asking? I'm not really familiar with ipython.
  - themanr 16y ago
    The main difference is the ability to interact with objects in the scope of the breakpoint. The console is always in window scope and I want to interact with local variables within a certain function.
    - yesbabyyes 16y ago
      If I don't misunderstand you, you can do this in Firebug. Open one of the scripts in the Script panel, click on the left hand side of any row to set a breakpoint. Execution will break there, and you can inspect the call stack, local scope and everything. It's the same in Chrome.
- paddy_m 16y ago
  check out mozrepl and mozrepl mode.
random42 16y ago
Firebug is the ONLY reason, why I have Firefox still installed on my work machine.
pornel 16y ago
It would be cool if all inspectors' front-ends and back-ends became interchangeable. Opera Dragonfly goes in that direction. It's open-sourced (http://bitbucket.org/scope/dragonfly-stp-1/ http://bitbucket.org/scope/dragonfly-stp-1/) and uses documented protocol for communication with browser core: http://dragonfly.opera.com/app/scope-interface/ http://dragonfly.opera.com/app/scope-interface/ Recently Dragonfly has been made compatible with Chrome, debugging Opera remotely: http://twitpic.com/30ul4b http://twitpic.com/30ul4b
nowarninglabel 16y ago
Took me forever (well 2 minutes, but still) to find the donate link: http://getfirebug.com/contribute http://getfirebug.com/contribute Granted, I really wanted to donate until I saw they used Paypal. Lots of other options now guys: https://www.wepay.com/ https://www.wepay.com/ https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/index.htm https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/index.htm Maybe someone will read this and consider it for the future. I'd donate $50 today if I could do so via Amazon payments.
arach 16y ago
Anyone else think it was a reference to Kafka? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis
8ig8 16y ago
There was a HN discussion that touched on Firebug, Chrome and webdev yesterday as well... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1827871 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1827871
8ig8 16y ago
The notion of competing again the browser developers is interesting. Frankly, I haven't dug too deep into the economics of Firebug, but I hold the assumption that the project is not financially motivated. It's a typical open project where the developers' reward is the process of creative problem solving and also giving back to the community. When financial reward is not the goal, my first thought would be to work with and not against the browser developers. There is a common goal so why not focus resources. I'm glad that that is not the case because it is this competition, financial or not, that drives innovation. I'm looking forward to learning more about the motivations behind FB since I use it almost daily. My preliminary quest didn't get too far since the footer link points to a parked (squatted) site.
andrerobot 16y ago
Has someone looked at the Web Console features ?https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_the_Web_Console https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_the_Web_Console It is just a simple console like Firebug Lite. Even the site says "The Web Console won't replace more advanced debugging tools like Firebug", so why is the Firebug team so worried about it? Firebug is a great tool for Mozilla browsers and I feel that considering porting Firebug to other browsers could be a difficult goal for the project.
- blasdel 16y ago
  The Firebug team is worried because Mozilla have been passive-aggressively antagonistic towards them for a long time. Mozilla heavily promoted their abjectly useless "Web Developer Toolbar" extension for years, even bundling it with the browser by default. They also have not been shy about breaking Firebug with every major release, basically not taking it seriously at all. Now they've started down the usual embrace-extend-extinguish path that they've taken before with Firefox extensions — bake an unremovable inflexible implementation of the basic functionality into the browser, with a perspective twist of some kind, and major core API changes that make it difficult for the original extension to continue development. They're worried about them doing AwesomeBug in a future release.
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    Mozilla heavily promoted their abjectly useless "Web Developer Toolbar" extension for years, even bundling it with the browser by default. The Web Developer Toolbar was made by Chris Pederick, not Mozilla. It’s also never been bundled with Firefox.
    - blasdel 16y ago
      You're right, the orthogonally-useless https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6622/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6622/ is what I was remembering, it was bundled vaguely as "Developer Tools" in the installer until Firefox 3. Obnoxiously hard to google for, I ended up having to dig up a Windows VM and an old Firefox installer to figure out what it was.
docgnome 16y ago
> shifting from open source to collaborative source to create closer cooperation between Firebug core and extension development What does "collaborative source" mean?
danielha 16y ago
I love Firebug so much. It may be the only reason I launch Firefox as of late. Chrome is my daily browser. Web inspector is quite good and it does the job most of the time. The JS console is awesome. But for some reason, doing anything else but using that JS console never feels quite as good as doing it within Firebug.
moconnor 16y ago
This is a shame. I wish the team all the best, but I can't see them pulling this off. I hope I've misunderstood, but it sounds like they want to: 1. Refactor a ton of code (this is not much fun, as you're just breaking things and fixing new bugs) 2. Add support for lots of other browsers (this is also not much fun, see #1) 3. Try exciting new off-the-wall ideas (awesome!) How many people are going to continue to contribute when #1 and #2 drag on from weeks to months to years of discussions about correct refactoring methodologies and Doing It Right This Time? How far will the other browser's development tools come in this time? Perhaps #3 will save the project, but I sadly predict the eventual demise of a giant.

138 points by znarfor 16y ago

I develop exclusively in Firefox, and test on other browsers, so I use Firebug all the time. How well do other built-in tools compare to it?

kevindication 16y ago
Chrome's developer tools are quite nice. They provide a lot of information in a pleasing fashion - both functionally because it gets you access to everything you needed when you decided to install Firebug, and aesthetically, because it all looks good. I also found that Chrome's tools excel in one area especially, that is, locating errors in a document and quickly getting to the root cause. I recently picked up someone else's pile of HTML and javascript and was able to quickly make sense of what was wrong and fix it. I still use Firebug at work because I don't have Chrome there, but for home projects I've pretty much switched entirely.
rhodimus 16y ago
I can only speak for the Chrome/Safari WebInspector, and they're good, but I find myself going back to Firebug if I have to do any serious debugging - personally I find there to be a big step up in usability with Firebug meaning I can work faster. It'll be interesting to see what happens to development tools when Firebug goes cross-browser.
- masklinn 16y ago
  > I find myself going back to Firebug if I have to do any serious debugging Why? What difference do you see between the browsers debugging-wise?
  - joshstaiger 16y ago
    I use Chrome for many tasks, but there are little things I go back to FireBug for. For some reason the WebKit request explorer doesn’t show cookie headers, for instance.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      > For some reason the WebKit request explorer doesn’t show cookie headers, for instance. Mmm indeed, that's interesting, I'd never noticed. It shows the Set-Cookie response headers but not the Cookie request ones.
  - rhodimus 16y ago
    > Why? What difference do you see between the browsers debugging-wise? Feature-wise, very little. But as I said - I do find I can work faster with Firebug - I much prefer the the DOM inspector (one click node editing, css editing, the fact that it live updates the DOM as it is changed via any JS running on the page) and the console (DOM/JS object inspection and having XHR logging in the console itself and not on another tab). Plugins such as FireQuery also make a difference for my needs.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      > one click node editing Yes the Webkit DOM inspector lacks that. > css editing It does have that on the other hand. > the fact that it live updates the DOM as it is changed via any JS running on the page My DOM inspector does seem to do that as well, though it doesn't highlight the altered subtrees the way Firebug does. > DOM/JS object inspection Has been in for a long time, though it could be missing some bells and whistles. > having XHR logging in the console itself and not on another tab Matter of tastes there, we'll have to agree to disagree as I'm not fond of this at all. > Plugins such as FireQuery also make a difference for my needs. Yes that I will easily give you.
      - rhodimus 16y ago
        > It does have that on the other hand. I know, but CSS editing is easier with Firebug. > My DOM inspector does seem to do that as well, though it doesn't highlight the altered subtrees the way Firebug does. Not nearly the in same way a Firebug does it, I find it very useful for the amount of DOM manipulation I do with JS. > Has been in for a long time, though it could be missing some bells and whistles. Again it's the "bells and whistles" that really make the difference for me some of the time. The less time it takes me to debug something, the better. That said, I still use Chrome inspector on a daily basis, there's no fanboyism from my part.
        masklinn 16y ago
        > Again it's the "bells and whistles" that really make the difference for me some of the time. Since you haven't described which bells and whistles you think are missing, I can't exactly agree with your position.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- rexyo 16y ago
  Me too, Everybody has his or her likes.. Have been working pretty hardcore on web development for 10 years now but will stick with firefox for debugging because I use a lot of their tools, for example: Firebug, Web dev Toolbar, HttpLiveHeaders, Rainbow and a couple more superior extensions..
tvon 16y ago
I stopped going back to Firebug and stuck with Safari about a year ago. I still fire up Firefox on occasion to compare errors when I'm really stumped, but it's more a matter of getting another perspective than it is a shortcoming in the Web Inspector.
masklinn 16y ago
* The Webkit Developer Tools (Safari, Chrome) are roughly on-par. They progress faster and have some features Firebug doesn't, but they don't have plugins and there are some nice features of Firebug they don't replicate (built-in introspection of jquery collections). They're way fucking faster than Firefox with Firebug enabled though, that's a big plus. They also implement most of the Firebug `console` API. The only tool which is not as good as Firebug's would be the DOM inspector, as it's a bit harder to edit nodes in line (though it's not actually hard). * IE8's developer tools are a start, but they're slow, buggy and tend to crash a lot (either a soft-crash where some features suddenly stop working, or a hard crash where the inspector takes down the browser). I think they only implement `console.log`, and it only works when you have the tools open otherwise it generates an error * Opera's Dragonfly... well I haven't tried it in a long time, though I mean to do it soon-ish: during last week's Opera "AMA" on reddit I was told good progress had been made. These days I use Safari as my main development browser, and it's very enjoyable. edit: addendum, there are also things simply done differently. For instance Firebug displays the ajax requests in the console, which is something I find spammy but you may like. On the other hand the Webkit dev tools not only have a dedicated console tab but you can access a JS console from any tool (by pressing [ESC] in Safari, don't know the chrome shortcut, might be the same, it will slide up a console to half-height in the manner of e.g. OSX's Visor) which is very handy, especially in the debugger.

Luyt 16y ago

You see the same thing happening with interface AddOns for World Of Warcraft: the functionality of a few very popular AddOns is eventually incorporated into the game itself.

dboyd 16y ago

With no doubt, the Firebug team can take credit for changing the world of Web development. These guys aren't giving themselves enough credit. IMO, they can take credit for advancing the world of Web development. While the other development tools are (quickly) catching up, firebug is still leading the pack.

erikpukinskis 16y ago
I've pretty happily switched to Chrome, which seems to do everything I used to ask Firebug to do. Although honestly I no longer use Firebug because I no longer use Firefox, and I no longer use Firefox because it takes up an obscene amount of vertical real estate compared to Chrome.
- BrandonM 16y ago
  My Firefox takes up less vertical real estate than Chrome. I use Tiny Menu, customize the toolbars to put everything into the menu bar, and use Tree-Style Tabs to show the tabs vertically along the right side. The best option I have at work is Chrome, and having the tabs along the top is much less usable compared to Tree-Style Tabs.
  - sjs 16y ago
    It's subjective. I tried and hated tree style tabs. I prefer Chrome these days but Firefox and Safari are still up there, and also fast[1]. It's just nice to have a variety of good browsers to choose from. [1] http://arewefastyet.com http://arewefastyet.com (doesn't say "no" anymore)
    - BrandonM 16y ago
      I didn't say Tree Style tabs were better, only more usable (for me). I can have 30 tabs open and see a pretty wide portion of the page title. I sacrifice horizontal real estate (which is often wasted) for vertical real estate. I can understand not liking tree style tabs for various reasons, but saying that their improved usability is subjective is a bit of a stretch.

DanielRibeiro 16y ago

The feature I'd really like to see these tools implementing is debugging support for javascript compiled languages. In particular coffeescript.

qeorge 16y ago

Support for full Firebug on other browsers, including mobile This would change my life, much like the first appearance of Firebug. I would happily pay real money for this right now.

themanr 16y ago

I would love to see a JavaScript debugger that could break to something like an ipython shell. It's the one thing I really miss moving from server side to client side debugging.

etherealG 16y ago
how is that different from a firebug/webkit inspector javascript console if you don't mind me asking? I'm not really familiar with ipython.
- themanr 16y ago
  The main difference is the ability to interact with objects in the scope of the breakpoint. The console is always in window scope and I want to interact with local variables within a certain function.
  - yesbabyyes 16y ago
    If I don't misunderstand you, you can do this in Firebug. Open one of the scripts in the Script panel, click on the left hand side of any row to set a breakpoint. Execution will break there, and you can inspect the call stack, local scope and everything. It's the same in Chrome.
paddy_m 16y ago
check out mozrepl and mozrepl mode.

random42 16y ago

Firebug is the ONLY reason, why I have Firefox still installed on my work machine.

pornel 16y ago

It would be cool if all inspectors' front-ends and back-ends became interchangeable. Opera Dragonfly goes in that direction. It's open-sourced (http://bitbucket.org/scope/dragonfly-stp-1/ http://bitbucket.org/scope/dragonfly-stp-1/) and uses documented protocol for communication with browser core: http://dragonfly.opera.com/app/scope-interface/ http://dragonfly.opera.com/app/scope-interface/ Recently Dragonfly has been made compatible with Chrome, debugging Opera remotely: http://twitpic.com/30ul4b http://twitpic.com/30ul4b

nowarninglabel 16y ago

Took me forever (well 2 minutes, but still) to find the donate link: http://getfirebug.com/contribute http://getfirebug.com/contribute Granted, I really wanted to donate until I saw they used Paypal. Lots of other options now guys: https://www.wepay.com/ https://www.wepay.com/ https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/index.htm https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/index.htm Maybe someone will read this and consider it for the future. I'd donate $50 today if I could do so via Amazon payments.

arach 16y ago

Anyone else think it was a reference to Kafka? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis

8ig8 16y ago

There was a HN discussion that touched on Firebug, Chrome and webdev yesterday as well... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1827871 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1827871

8ig8 16y ago

The notion of competing again the browser developers is interesting. Frankly, I haven't dug too deep into the economics of Firebug, but I hold the assumption that the project is not financially motivated. It's a typical open project where the developers' reward is the process of creative problem solving and also giving back to the community. When financial reward is not the goal, my first thought would be to work with and not against the browser developers. There is a common goal so why not focus resources. I'm glad that that is not the case because it is this competition, financial or not, that drives innovation. I'm looking forward to learning more about the motivations behind FB since I use it almost daily. My preliminary quest didn't get too far since the footer link points to a parked (squatted) site.

andrerobot 16y ago

Has someone looked at the Web Console features ?https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_the_Web_Console https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Using_the_Web_Console It is just a simple console like Firebug Lite. Even the site says "The Web Console won't replace more advanced debugging tools like Firebug", so why is the Firebug team so worried about it? Firebug is a great tool for Mozilla browsers and I feel that considering porting Firebug to other browsers could be a difficult goal for the project.

blasdel 16y ago
The Firebug team is worried because Mozilla have been passive-aggressively antagonistic towards them for a long time. Mozilla heavily promoted their abjectly useless "Web Developer Toolbar" extension for years, even bundling it with the browser by default. They also have not been shy about breaking Firebug with every major release, basically not taking it seriously at all. Now they've started down the usual embrace-extend-extinguish path that they've taken before with Firefox extensions — bake an unremovable inflexible implementation of the basic functionality into the browser, with a perspective twist of some kind, and major core API changes that make it difficult for the original extension to continue development. They're worried about them doing AwesomeBug in a future release.
- robin_reala 16y ago
  Mozilla heavily promoted their abjectly useless "Web Developer Toolbar" extension for years, even bundling it with the browser by default. The Web Developer Toolbar was made by Chris Pederick, not Mozilla. It’s also never been bundled with Firefox.
  - blasdel 16y ago
    You're right, the orthogonally-useless https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6622/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6622/ is what I was remembering, it was bundled vaguely as "Developer Tools" in the installer until Firefox 3. Obnoxiously hard to google for, I ended up having to dig up a Windows VM and an old Firefox installer to figure out what it was.

docgnome 16y ago

> shifting from open source to collaborative source to create closer cooperation between Firebug core and extension development What does "collaborative source" mean?

danielha 16y ago

I love Firebug so much. It may be the only reason I launch Firefox as of late. Chrome is my daily browser. Web inspector is quite good and it does the job most of the time. The JS console is awesome. But for some reason, doing anything else but using that JS console never feels quite as good as doing it within Firebug.

moconnor 16y ago

This is a shame. I wish the team all the best, but I can't see them pulling this off. I hope I've misunderstood, but it sounds like they want to: 1. Refactor a ton of code (this is not much fun, as you're just breaking things and fixing new bugs) 2. Add support for lots of other browsers (this is also not much fun, see #1) 3. Try exciting new off-the-wall ideas (awesome!) How many people are going to continue to contribute when #1 and #2 drag on from weeks to months to years of discussions about correct refactoring methodologies and Doing It Right This Time? How far will the other browser's development tools come in this time? Perhaps #3 will save the project, but I sadly predict the eventual demise of a giant.