3 ms·

Safari continues to have the best developer tools, so long as you don't need to debug JavaScript.

akst 9mo ago
I don't think JS debugging in Safari is that bad. But I also use it as my main browser, so maybe there are some nicer features in other browser dev tools I haven't been exposed too.
- etchalon 9mo ago
  It's mostly that there's no way for third-party tooling to initiate a debugging session, I believe.
  - akst 9mo ago
    That's fair.
- baxuz 9mo ago
  It's criminally bad. You can't copy logged variables. You can't inspect worker threads (!?). WASM support is practically non-existant. You can't even do a heap snapshot on demand, something that should be a basic feature. The timelines view is practically obfuscated with pretty graphs that show some aggregated data and some automatically generated snapshot points where the dev tools decide that are meaningful. Inspecting the rendering pipeline is impossible. You can't see memory usage, compositing reasons, long frames (you kinda can but it's tricky)... Not even going into remote debugging for iOS which crashes either the dev tools or Safari on iOS in any non-trivial scenario — the exact ones you need a debugger for.
  - akst 9mo ago
    That's fair, it sounds like you're dealing with some use cases I don't deal with often. And yeah remote debugging safari on an iPhone is pretty unreliable.
aaronbrethorst 9mo ago
I use Safari for day-to-day web browsing and Chrome for development. Feels like the best of both worlds to me.
- matwood 9mo ago
  Same. Chrome dev tools, especially around JS are just better.
boxed 9mo ago
The Chrome tool where you can edit CSS inside the inspect panel and it writes it to the CSS file is amazing and I really miss that in Safari.
troupo 9mo ago
Safari's dev tools are ... just bad. They are frustratingly cumbersome to use: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1711701552082079764 https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1711701552082079764
akst 9mo ago
People have pointed out to what’s Obviously wrong with the JS tooling but I had more problems with CSS style sheets generated at runtime or web components attached stylesheets They all work is just editing their styles that seems to be a pain, you straight up cannot edit a shared stylesheet attached to an web components elements shadow dom. If you generate enough styles in JS you may not be to edit them correctly (as in it shed you the wrong styles for the element)

akst 9mo ago

I don't think JS debugging in Safari is that bad. But I also use it as my main browser, so maybe there are some nicer features in other browser dev tools I haven't been exposed too.

etchalon 9mo ago
It's mostly that there's no way for third-party tooling to initiate a debugging session, I believe.
- akst 9mo ago
  That's fair.
baxuz 9mo ago
It's criminally bad. You can't copy logged variables. You can't inspect worker threads (!?). WASM support is practically non-existant. You can't even do a heap snapshot on demand, something that should be a basic feature. The timelines view is practically obfuscated with pretty graphs that show some aggregated data and some automatically generated snapshot points where the dev tools decide that are meaningful. Inspecting the rendering pipeline is impossible. You can't see memory usage, compositing reasons, long frames (you kinda can but it's tricky)... Not even going into remote debugging for iOS which crashes either the dev tools or Safari on iOS in any non-trivial scenario — the exact ones you need a debugger for.
- akst 9mo ago
  That's fair, it sounds like you're dealing with some use cases I don't deal with often. And yeah remote debugging safari on an iPhone is pretty unreliable.

aaronbrethorst 9mo ago

I use Safari for day-to-day web browsing and Chrome for development. Feels like the best of both worlds to me.

matwood 9mo ago
Same. Chrome dev tools, especially around JS are just better.

boxed 9mo ago

The Chrome tool where you can edit CSS inside the inspect panel and it writes it to the CSS file is amazing and I really miss that in Safari.

troupo 9mo ago

Safari's dev tools are ... just bad. They are frustratingly cumbersome to use: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1711701552082079764 https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1711701552082079764

akst 9mo ago

People have pointed out to what’s Obviously wrong with the JS tooling but I had more problems with CSS style sheets generated at runtime or web components attached stylesheets They all work is just editing their styles that seems to be a pain, you straight up cannot edit a shared stylesheet attached to an web components elements shadow dom. If you generate enough styles in JS you may not be to edit them correctly (as in it shed you the wrong styles for the element)