Do you remember how frustrating it can be trying to track down that missing semicolon or misplaced closing bracket? You probably already know this, but sometimes the difference between minutes and hours lost can be the quality of tools available to you. According to John J. Barton, if you're programming dynamic web pages with Javascript and are using Firefox as your browser, then you definitely want Firebug in your toolbox.
Firebug is an open source add-on that integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. Using Firebug, you can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
In this short tutorial, Barton explains how to use Firebug's JavaScript profiler to measure the performance of a web page. With performance information available, he then illustrates how to use Firebug to identify performance bottlenecks. To conclude the tutorial, Barton uses Firebug to demonstrate the performance improvements gained from the changes made using Firebug.
John J. Barton is the manager of Interaction Science, an IBM Almaden Research group specializing in fundamentals of human-computer interaction (HCI) technologies, especially multi-device interaction. Interaction Science studies users, invents new techniques and technology, then validates progress by scientific tests with real users. Current projects in my group include text input on handheld devices, integration of information across devices via instant messaging, adapting web pages for mobile devices, and extending web debugging to support more dynamic applications and environments.
John has 21 years of experience in industrial research with over 60 publications in the diverse fields of ubiquitious and mobile computing, compiler technology and programming languages, physics of electron scattering, and chemistry on surfaces. After early work in quantum chemistry at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena CA, he got his MS in Applied Physics at Caltech and moved to Berkeley. There he worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and got his PhD at UC Berkeley. John joined the Physics department at IBM Watson to work on Photoelectron Holography, moving to Computer Science in 1991 to work on C++ compilers and co-author a book, “Advanced C++”, with Lee Nackman. John managed the Jikes Java Research Virtual Machine team until 1998 when he moved to HP Labs Palo Alto where he was part of the Cooltown web-based ubiquitious computing project. When he isn’t playing computer games with his sons or working on his deck, he contributes to the Firebug open-source Javascript debugger.
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Photo: Peter Norby