Ratcliffe also provides a nice history of the Firebug extension over time. MochiKit JavaScript Interpreter - Firebug’s own JavaScript interpreter was inspired by this lightweight JavaScript library, which allows developers to run JavaScript commands on the fly, with access to the DOM. It shows errors filtered by type, language and context, including line numbers where errors occurred and linking directly to the offending line in the source code.Īardvark - This Firefox extension led to one of the best features of Firebug: allowing developers to see underlying source code, and perform various actions (e.g., change CSS), by hovering over the elements of an HTML page. View Source Chart - Firebug’s HTML panel was based on this Firefox add-on for displaying underlying HTML in a hierarchical way, grouping tags nested at similar levels.Ĭonsole² - Console Squared, as it’s also known, was the inspiration for Firebug’s Console Panel. Peter Venkman, in Ghostbusters) inspired Firebug’s own JavaScript debugger. Venkman JavaScript Debugger - This JavaScript debugger for Mozilla-based browsers, created in 2001 (and, yes, named after Bill Murray’s character, Dr. Ratcliffe points out that the following extensions and tools helped to inspire, sometimes quite directly, the different components that make up Firebug. But do you much about its history? If not, then I suggest you read Mozilla developer Mike Ratcliffe’s recent write-up for the back-story on this important tool.įirebug was created by Joe Hewitt, one of the original developers of the Firefox browser, in 2006. If you’re a web developer, odds are high that you know Firebug well. It’s gone a long way to making JavaScript (and web) development a lot less painful than it was back in the day.

The popular Firefox extension is used by developers to debug HTML, CSS and JavaScript right in the browser when building web applications. One reason developers have cited for disliking JavaScript is the lack of debugging capabilities.Īt least, that was the case before Firebug came along in 2006. It’s also, on the flip side, one of the most unpopular languages, partially because so many people have to work with it.

It’s certainly one of the most widely-used programming languages used today, if not the most widely-used one.

JavaScript is everywhere these days, it seems. Image credit: flickr/ Eran Finkle An actual firebug won't help you much with web development

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