How do you debug Javascript applications?

Question

I work in an application that is JavaScript intense. So to debug , I end up using many alerts. Are there other better ways to debug ? What methods do you use ?

Answer 1

For JavaScript, debugging is a sinch in most browsers:

IE - Where you really need to debug, F12 is the console. You can call console.log, console.debug, console.error and a few others, and it will print out good data. When you call console.log on an object, good consoles will print out the property break-down of the object. There's also an active dom inspector so that you can see what's going on as the script is running.

• Firefox - Get the Firebug addon. It is my favorite console of them all. Does everything I've ever dreamed of needing, and a few more features.
• Chrome - Built-in console, inspect element on the page to see the breakdown of the DOM live.
• Opera - Built-in console
• Safari - Add Firebug Lite to the page, and you'll have a JS driven version of Firebug. Safari has built-in dev tools similar to Chrome, however they need to be enabled.

For all browsers, you can add Firebug Lite, but I really only use it for IE and Safari.