Extending jsdIDebuggerService.

[John J Barton]

By now I have enough experience with Firebug to start looking at JSD
support for Web 2.0 technologies. I need to figure some stuff out:

   Who: is interested in jsdIDebuggerService (jsd) additions and how can
I contact them?

   How: would new jsd code find its way into Firefox?

   What: functionality should be in any update?

I've got the "Why" bit covered: my eval() support in Firebug is slow,
complicated, and useful. With JSD-level changes the first two properties
can go away.

John.
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[Gijs Kruitbosch ("Hannibal")]

John J. Barton wrote:

> By now I have enough experience with Firebug to start looking at JSD
> support for Web 2.0 technologies. I need to figure some stuff out:
>
>   Who: is interested in jsdIDebuggerService (jsd) additions and how can
> I contact them?
>
>   How: would new jsd code find its way into Firefox?
>
>   What: functionality should be in any update?
>
> I've got the "Why" bit covered: my eval() support in Firebug is slow,
> complicated, and useful. With JSD-level changes the first two properties
> can go away.
>
> John.

Personally, I think you're too late. I'm not sure how you would want to
add to the existing interface to support eval() better, but either way,
as Fx 3 betas are rolling out (another freeze for beta 2 tomorrow), I
don't think this can actually happen anymore. Which is a shame, but
either way...

I'm guessing that after Fx 3 work will focus on Mozilla 2.0, which means
tamarin, which means, to my knowledge, the death of js/jsd - though
brendan and co. are probably better predictors of that. Not that it
won't be replaced, but that makes it kind of useless to try to improve
it still.

If you have reasonable additions ready that you think can still make it
through polish, review, superreview and approval within the next few
weeks, then go for it. I'll try to be as responsive as possible with
review (for jsd/venkman parts), but everything else is out of my hands.
Sorry.

~ Gijs
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[John J Barton]

Gijs Kruitbosch wrote:
  > Personally, I think you're too late. I'm not sure how you would want to
> add to the existing interface to support eval() better, but either way,
> as Fx 3 betas are rolling out (another freeze for beta 2 tomorrow), I
> don't think this can actually happen anymore. Which is a shame, but
> either way...

So part of the answer is "you need to get these things into FF early in
the major dev cycle".

>
> I'm guessing that after Fx 3 work will focus on Mozilla 2.0, which means
> tamarin, which means, to my knowledge, the death of js/jsd - though
> brendan and co. are probably better predictors of that. Not that it
> won't be replaced, but that makes it kind of useless to try to improve
> it still.

As far as I know tamarin is a JIT; as far as I know all practical
successful JITs also have interpreters because interpreters are faster
than compilers.  EG Java Hotspot or Jikes RVM: they only compile stuff
that has run more than a few times. So it seems likely that an
interpreter will be needed in Mozilla 2.  And history suggests that
follow-ons to FF3 will appear before Mozilla 2 arrives.  And experience
in the current code base with improvements in Javascript debugging will
aid any debugger in Mozilla 2.  All reasons to pursue jsd improvements.

>
> If you have reasonable additions ready that you think can still make it
> through polish, review, superreview and approval within the next few
> weeks, then go for it. I'll try to be as responsive as possible with
> review (for jsd/venkman parts), but everything else is out of my hands.

Thanks, but I'm not there yet.
John.
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[John J Barton]

John J Barton wrote:

>
> As far as I know tamarin is a JIT; as far as I know all practical

Well that was just wrong:
http://wiki.mozilla.org/JavaScript:ActionMonkey
says under  Stage 5  (speculative)
"Merge the Tamarin interpreter and JIT into ActionMonkey."

> successful JITs also have interpreters because interpreters are faster
> than compilers.  EG Java Hotspot or Jikes RVM: they only compile stuff
> that has run more than a few times. So it seems likely that an
> interpreter will be needed in Mozilla 2.  And history suggests that
> follow-ons to FF3 will appear before Mozilla 2 arrives.  And experience
> in the current code base with improvements in Javascript debugging will
> aid any debugger in Mozilla 2.  All reasons to pursue jsd improvements.
>
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