To many front-end developers this is a ubiquitous dream, but is it really?
About a month ago I launched an idea I’ve had for a while. The idea is called RemoteDebug, and is an initiative to unify remote debugging across browsers. As a part of my presentation at FullFrontal conference where I talked about RemoteDebug, I demoed an early prototype of using Chrome DevTools together with Mozilla Firefox.
I want to tell you a bit more about the prototype.
<img src="/images/remote-debug-firefox-animation.gif" />
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For the demo I didn't invented something completely new. Instead I’ve written something I call a “RemoteDebug bridge”, that acts as a translator between the different dialects of remote debugging protocols.
My vision is to provide a bridge for each remote debugging protocol, but for my demo I’ve written a bridge called remotedebug-firefox-bridge. As the name indicates, it's a simple translator between Google Chrome Remote Debugging and Mozilla Firefox Remote Debugging.
The bridge is implemented as a small node app that connects to Firefox by using Firefox's existing remote debugging protocol, translates the commands and provides a Chrome Remote Debugging compliant HTTP and WebSocket endpoints, which Chrome DevTools is then configured to connect to.
It make it more understandable I created a small screencast showing it in action:
<figure> <iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/86qg7zYh3AY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> </figure>
It's still an early prototype, but remotedebug-firefox-bridge shows some of the possibilities that will be possible when we, as a community, unify remote debugging in our browsers.
If you think this is a good idea, you should read more about the RemoteDebug initiative. Help me pass the message along to our browser vendors.
This is just the beginning. Imagine where we can go from here.