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Comment by tim-- | Hacker News Reader

Internet Explorer 6 also had the Microsoft created IE Dev Toolbar that came out around the same time as Firebug (I think it was 6 months after?). It really was a powerful tool, but somehow not really well known in the dev world at that time.

I'm really sad that Microsoft put all thier eggs in the Chrome/Chromium basket, instead of continuing thier own engine, or supporting Firefox.

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Yeah, I remember using this to try and debug MS JScript issues. What a headache, it was extremely flaky and would crash if you looked at it wrong.

I think people forget that debuggers used to crash the IDE as a matter of course (and they didn’t auto save as a matter of course).

VisualAge for Java, the precursor for Eclipse, was the first IDE where the debugger was stable. However the editor would just up and crash instead, which is worse. Symantec had the first generally stable IDE in VisualCAFE.

I learned to obsessively type CTRL-S on word processors in college. But that came to adulthood with me because of shit IDEs. I’ve used Jetbrains for more than 15 years. I know it saves when it loses focus. And I still hit save about ten times a day.

Everyone hated IE by then. It was the ex that only tried hard after the breakup had started. It’s too late. Don’t forget your toothbrush.

I remember really struggling with the IE Dev Toolbar. It was infinitely better than nothing, but it paled in comparison to Firebug.

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