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28 May

Why Firebug sucks more than IE6

Updated because I got tired of the crap I was getting for venting.

33 Responses to “Why Firebug sucks more than IE6”

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  1. Phil_fl May 28th, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    using Firebug on Linux (fedora (x86 & amd64) Ubuntu (amd64)) and on Windows (XP)
    I'm not able to reproduce issues you are showing (video), I don't say you are faking it, I'm sure they are real for you, but thankfully I don't have them.
    I haven't checked all the versions though, (I should have) but currently (writing this reply) On a Linux Fedora (x86) Firefox 3.5.9 Firebug 1.5.3 doesn't show the problems.

  2. Richard Castera May 28th, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    I agree with your comments as well but, do you even remember what it was like to develop a website without it? Sure it has it's quirks... No software is perfect! Re-factoring code is a necessary part of development and quality assurance is as well so, in short, as many others have mentioned above, let's get involved http://getfirebug.com/getinvolved.

  3. Jeremy Weiskotten May 28th, 2010 at 2:47 pm

    I agree that Firebug is flaky at times. However, one big difference between Firebug and IE (any version) is that Firebug is open source. You can view the code, edit it, improve it, submit patches -- help make it what you want it to be. You can't do that with IE.

  4. Sawyer May 28th, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    +1 for not being reproducible on my Mac or Linux boxes. Up to date Firefox on both. I'm wondering if it's part of a Firefox profile problem or plugin conflict. Have you tried running a new profile of Firefox with just Firebug and trying it again?

  5. Blog Author Remy Sharp May 28th, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    So I feel I should reply to some of the comments left today:

    • For everyone saying I should get involved - I will. I work on lots of different projects, publish as much as I can to help others learn and between that I run my own business to pay the bills. Once I'm through the current spate of work, I'll be digging in to the project to see if I can fix the things I've experienced. Rest assured though, most people complain and do nothing, not even highlight the issues. In fact, I've tried before, looking through the code - but it's not a gentle ride in. My next attempt, this time around, I'll be more determined.
    • For those suggestion Safari & Chrome inspector - I already use that. It's solid and doesn't drop out as often as Firebug, but when Firebug works (or rather if I'm dodgy bugs) then it's my preferred (and recommended) environment.
    • A few people don't understand the comparison to IE6. I'm not comparing IE6 to Firebug - I never do and never did. It's chalk and cheese. The experience of bug fighting is what I'm comparing. IE6 has been bashed for ages but it's never throwing up new problems. Firebug does, that's why I was comparing against my experience of fighting with IE6
    • @Antonin - I'm a big fan of FireQuery - and I've been pushing designers to use it in my jQuery for Designer talks and workshops. That aside, I am using a stable version of Firefox (we shouldn't be convincing developers there are more stable older versions). The random plugins that I run is the Web Developer plugin, Greasemonkey (with no scripts installed) and Page Speed - which isn't used - but perhaps interfering - but I doubt it. That's it. Not much eh? Hence I rely on Firebug a ton.

      • For anyone thinking that this is what we get for a free tool: no. This isn't. We as web authors can make these things better. Enough people bitched about IE6 that eventually, at MIX10 - Microsoft opened with "we need to get people off IE6". We can change our situation and make it better. And as I've said I will get involved and I hope that everyone else who hits issues will also get involved, open the code, fix and help make it the best tool available again.

  6. Sawyer May 28th, 2010 at 3:06 pm

    To the people recommending Safari or Chrome's Web Inspector, I've got a few points.
    1. The CSS view/interface on the right side is a mess. It's not nearly as clean as Firebug's.
    2. Plugins. I don't see any possible way to add plugins to their inspector view like you can with Firefox. If there were, this would be a huge selling point. I could get over the CSS view being a complete mess if Chrome/Safari/Webkit had a better plugin system that wasn't just embedding scripts in every page you load up.

  7. MAC May 28th, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    I'm a professional Web Designer / Developer, and firebug has become one of my indispensable working tools. It saves me zillions of time to inspect CSS in highly parented mockups.

  8. Frank Booth May 28th, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    > If you raise the bar, you've got a reputation to maintain, and dropping below par isn't acceptable.

    You've mixed your metaphors. When you raise the bar you need to stay above the bar. This is a high jump / pole vault analogy. Par, on the other hand, is from golf, and the idea in golf is to stay below par.

  9. Donny Kurnia May 28th, 2010 at 3:58 pm

    In my firebug, all script is repeated 3 times. First time I encounter this, I'm suprised and re-check my file. My file is fine, but when I see it in script tab, the content of the files is repeated exactly 3 times, in all files.

    Second, well, firebug say it's a feature but to me it's a bug. Net tab should be open while loading the page in order to see all resources. Web Inspector in Google Chrome can do this better than firebug, since it doesn't need to be open while the page load.

    I'm agree with you, firebug is suck. It have become what IE6 was back then, a de-facto tools with no rival. Without competition, the application will become worse and buggy, Microsoft products is the live prove of it.

  10. ethagnawl May 28th, 2010 at 4:16 pm

    Has anyone else noticed that after one of the recent Pixel Perfect releases, you are no longer able to move the layover around via the keyboard arrows?

    I don't know whether this is a Firebug issue or a Pixel Perfect issue, but you now have to drag the image around and then click on the Pixel Perfect arrows in order to mock up your pixel perfect comp.

    Now, if you'll pardon me, I'm going to step down off my soapbox and contact the developer to see if they know about this issue, instead of just blabbing on the interwebs and complaining about it to my colleagues.

  11. Blog Author Remy Sharp May 28th, 2010 at 4:16 pm

    @Frank - ha, cheers - English isn't my strong language, I'm generally better at JavaScript, except no one usually understands me!

  12. Pavel Zaitsev May 28th, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    I've had firebug stopped reporting any of the console output generated by console.log number of times, usually happens after a browser is open for a couple of days though.

    As well, some errors are just not caught. Code just stops working but I can't see some of the errors. Like when you miss putting semi-colons.

    Nice post thanks for putting it out there.

  13. Steven Roussey May 28th, 2010 at 5:03 pm

    Surely a difference in style, but when I was bothered by bugs in Firebug:

    1. Go to the google group/forum. There is a link to it right inside Firebug.
    2. Firebug wiki: describes how to create a new profile since other extensions can break stuff there and Firebug is in the same environment.
    3. Create an issue in the bug database. There is a link to it right inside Firebug. Selecting that menu item is surely easier than installing firebug was. Creating a repeatable test case is not so easy however. ;)
    4. Fix the bug. Obviously you know Javascript. Guess what? Firebug is written in Javascript! You're qualified.
    5. Write blog post about bug and fix. Not so sensational as doing this list in reverse order.

    I also found that more attention would be paid to the bugs I filed but didn't know how to fix if I fixed others that the other devs didn't have time for. Win-win! I focused my efforts on the HTML panel. You seem to say that it is solid, so thanks. Maybe someone in the future will say the same thing about the console (hampered by some Firefox platform bugs, btw) because of your efforts. But I've seen tweets and blog posts from people that say they are forced to get involved (like me!) but start a new profile, things work well enough and they can't be bothered. Time will tell.

    Now that I'm done ranting, I'd create a new profile for development. I think people are are crazy if they don't.

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