Question

I’m trying to find a less haphazard way than a write-and-test way to write Javascript. I don’t really use an IDE – I write, then test in browser – if anything’s wrong, I then use alert()‘s to try tracing. This can be a tedious process having to go back and forth from Notepad++ to the browser, so I wonder if there are better ways of doing this, whether there’s a good debug-friendly IDE for Javascript / jQuery or something better than alert’s to use (dynamic tracing?).

Are alert()’s the Javascript equivalent of Visual Studio IDE breakpoints?

Answer 1

There are a couple of different solutions available.

• Firebug: http://getfirebug.com/doc/breakpoints/demo.html
• Venkman Debugger: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/using_breakpoints_in_venkman
• Aptana: http://docs.aptana.com/docs/index.php/Adding_a_breakpoint