by Roger Pence
I can’t understand how an otherwise rational human being can eat mushrooms and, with a straight face, say they taste good. They’re fungus! They taste like dirt. They squeak on your teeth. You might as well be eating earthworms and rubber bands. But, still, some people do like mushrooms. I don’t hold that against them. In fact, some of my closest friends like mushrooms. I think they’re nuts but that doesn’t mean I will remove them from my FaceBook friends list (that’s a joke. I don’t have a FaceBook friends list).
IE: the dirt-tasting fungus of browsers
That’s also the way I feel about Internet Explorer. If you like it, if it makes you smile, that’s great. Good on you. If all I did was browse Web sites, IE might make me smile. But I use a browser as much as a developer tool as I do as a relaxation/research device. As a developer tool, IE just plain stinks. Firefox, with its add-in model, is sooooooo much better for so many reasons than IE is. Do not attempt to write (and learn) JavaScript without Firefox and its premier add-in debugger Firebug and its add-in Web developer tools. These are seriously powerful Web developer tools.
Having said that, with Internet Explorer 8 Microsoft has finally made a firm commitment to make IE developer-friendly. IE8 has Web development tools built into it. And pretty good tools at that. Previously the IE Developer Toolbar was an optional add-in for IE 6 and IE 7. While that add-in doesn’t offer JavaScript debugging, if you’re stuck with IE 6 or 7, the IE Developer Toolbar is a must-have for developers. IE8, though, emerges as the Microsoft browser of choice for developers. It’s built-in debugger (shown to the left) offers a much more seamless JavaScript debugging experience than Visual Studio does.
While the IE8 debugger lags behind FireBug in features (you can’t hover over a value for a quick watch display during execution with IE8 like you can FireBug, for example), it is surprisingly effective and helpful. It’s a bit too modal for my tastes and has a few clunky UI elements, but still, it’s a giant step forward for using IE for development purposes. IE8’s built-in developer tools is a yet another promising sign that MS is paying more attention to Web development.
In an interesting bit of related news, Opera also recently started including its own integrated developer tools. Its JavaScript debugger, while easily in third place when compared to Firefox and IE, shows promise.
The bottom line
If you are a Web developer, you absolutely have to install IE8 on your PC. Install it today before you forget! And, while I’m at, if you don’t yet use Firefox and its add-on development tools, do that today, too! They are all free and offer amazing power.
IE 8 debugger links
Fantastic new Javascript debugging tool with IE 8 and its list of features hard to live without
Falling in love with the IE8 JavaScript debugger
The MS Script Editor that comes with MS Office 2000 was much, much better than the IE8 debugger. I've been using the Script Editor for the past 4 yrs to debug very complex Javascript code in IE6. Seems many people never new this existed b/c you have to pull it out of MS office. I hope MS will put in more of the Script Editor features into IE8's debugger, like a 'Run to cursor' and 'Set next statement'. Also the IE8 debugger's layout is horrible...you can never see watches at the same time as your locals. The Script Editor's gui was very flexible w/ windows you could move around like in most development tools.
Posted by: Scott | February 23, 2010 at 12:16 PM