Safari Four For Developers

Firefox has left my dock. 

Right after the 3.0 update, I was beset with problems. Some of my everyday plugins didn't work yet. Firebug acted wonky, and as a JavaScript developer (among other things), I need an excellent debugger to be able to do my job.

But I kept the faith. After a few months, I learned how to avoid the quirks of the new Firebug. Sometimes I would find new ones, places where Firebug would simply refuse to help me debug, but they were easy enough to narrow down (and I only added a few new bald patches to my brain-warmer).

Finally, the Firefox 3.5 upgrade was released. "Faster Javascript!" they said. "Faster everything!" they said. "Support for <video>!" they said. All those claims I can verify, but once again Firebug acted wonky, worse than before. More frustration. More forced shedding.

About this time, I was told there was a bug in my application that only showed up in IE and Safari. Good thing, too, because I had Safari (also recently updated to version 4). I triaged and fixed the bug, then came across another one. Remembering that Safari also had a JavaScript debugger, I decided to give it a go.

I remember how Firebug once appeared to me. It was a jewel in the darkness. I swear a choir of celestial beings called a siren's tune as I stepped through the Firebug debugger. It was that same feeling that overcame me as I glided through Safari's debugger.

Safari's Javascript debugger is elegant and simple. It shows me errors, warnings, and ajax requests. It is fast and easy to use. It is built right into the browser, it is not a third-party add-on. Best of all, it simply works.

Add the new top sites feature, and Safari has everything that I need.

Firefox, we had some good times, but I'm with Safari now. I hope we can still be friends.