Comments on: IE team ports FireBug to IE8

By: Jesse

Jesse — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:41:16 +0000

Having a Firebug-style tool available for developers is practically a requirement if you want your browser to be relevant in the future. I don’t see how they could afford to skip putting this kind of tool in there. As for the fact that it copies Firebug, well… the IE team tried to do things their way and it just wasn’t as good as Firebug. Why reinvent the wheel?

By: ph

ph — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:02:56 +0000

Thank’s a lot

By: Chris Brandsma

Chris Brandsma — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:29:35 +0000

Chris: I’m not even sure it is worth dignifying this response with an answer. There is so much misdirected spite in that I don’t even know where to begin. But I’ll try.

First of, this type of tool is directed at developers. I still have to test my web sites in IE and Firefox, and I will continue to do so for quite a while now. If you want a tool with even worse tools to spout venom against, go see Safari and Chrome (but Chrome at least has a fighting shot at getting better).

For all the people still using IE6, it isn’t that I don’t care, but the likely-hood they will visit one of my sites is very low. For that matter, I still see lots of users till using old versions of Firefox. And the only way many of those people will ever upgrade is if you go to their machines and do it for them. Now, are you mad at IE6, or the people that use it?

Frankly, I’m too busy to care, and I prefer to not spend my time worrying about it. The attitude is counter productive. I give props to teams that do something good, regardless of how I think about the product. Progress is progress.

By: David Starr

David Starr — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:18:12 +0000

Wow. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I think people forget that MSFT is made of teams who are made of “drum roll” people just like us!

Does the product that your team ship to customers have every feature that every customer wants in it, Chris?

I’m not saying that MSFT is always on the ball, but I do think flaming the IE8 team for doing something good is a bit harsh.

By: Chris Spencer

Chris Spencer — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:12:31 +0000

It’s interesting to see MS playing catch-up to open source projects. Unfortunately, this tool is useless for most developers, since no one uses IE8. Heck, 22% of browsers are still IE6. Will this new tool work with any of the older versions of IE that will continue to be used for years to come? Of course not.

I’m thrilled MS finally got around to copying some useful functionality from FOSS. I just wish they also copied some of the common sense as well.

By: Undocumented Features » Blog Archive » PM Tools You Can Use: Roundup of Cool Things

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:10:07 +0000

[...] Firebug, a terrific browser add-on for debugging software, has ported its tools to IE8 [...]