OStatic

If you're a Web developer, it's a pretty good bet that one of your most important tools is Firebug, an open-source debugger for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Ajax that works inside of the open-source Firefox Web browser. Since it was first unveiled several years ago, Firebug has taken the Web-development world by storm, revolutionizing developers' ability to modify, test, and debug Web applications.

What is perhaps most amazing is that for much of its life, Firebug was developed by Joe Hewitt, a programmer who now works at Facebook. Indeed, until about a month ago, the getfirebug.com domain was run by Hewitt himself, until he announced in a blog posting that the domain is now hosted by Mozilla.

The evolution of Firebug from a one-man project to a more formal working group and team neither started nor ended with this domain transfer. A Firebug Working Group, which aims "to advance the Open Source development of Firebug for the benefit of the worldwide web development community," was formed last year. This group -- which includes several notable Web developers, including Douglas Crockford of Yahoo -- has set goals for several future versions of Firebug.

Just in the last week, the working group has announced some changes. Most prominently, John Resig, who works as a JavaScript evangelist at the Mozilla Corporation, announced that he would be spending half of his time "driving the direction" of Mozilla's Firebug team, along with two other Mozilla employees. John posted a vision of what Firebug can be earlier this month, giving us a sense of what Firebug's direction will be. In a nutshell, it appears as though Firebug will be the debugger of choice for Web application development, just as Firefox is the browser of choice among a very large number of developers.

If history is any indication, the formalization of Firebug development will lead to new features, regular releases, and greater community involvement. In addition, the fact that Mozilla will be hosting much of the development means that Firebug will benefit from the software practices that Mozilla has created over the years, along with ties to for-profit corporations that might bring additional money and developers to contribute. As JavaScript becomes the de facto application language for the Web, this can only mean good things for developers, and also for our end users.

• Firebug
• javascript
• mozilla
• firefox