Announcing TypeScript 0.8.1 with Source level debugging
blogs.msdn.com
blogs.msdn.com
For more information, see this excellent talk: http://v8-io12.appspot.com/
This line of type inference is very problematic in languages like JavaScript. Your statement that you expected "modern type inference" makes it sound like you only have practical knowledge (maybe you've used ML or Haskell?), not theoretical background. You should review the literature.
Having to use "print_r", or "console.log" is a pain in the ass.
Also I'd imagine (haven't used it yet!) if you change the source in visual studio while debugging it would save to a file, while I cannot do that in chrome. I think I've heard it's possible in chrome, but never really seen how.
You can't change the source directly, but you can change the properties of an object and change global variables with the console.
https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/sc...
You know what's really good about the Chrome debugger? It's free and it's on every computer that runs Chrome. Visual Studio is neither of those. I really wish they built VS functionality into the IE debugger.
As far as showing variables, one trick I use a lot is to set a conditional breakpoint where the code to execute is `console.log(stuff), false` so that it just logs stuff but doesn't ever stop. That's also handy for "fixing" variable values without stopping.
EDIT: Oh, I see, from your comment you are just leveraging the conditional breakpoint to ad-hoc them. That works but is a bit uglier than truly supported tracing breakpoints, and wouldn't appear to offer things like dumping the callstack to the output window or only triggering the print out only when specific conditions are met (i.e. a conditional tracing breakpoint). I suppose you could ad-hoc that as well by surrounding the print code with an if(<condition>) { print stuff }, <condition>. Works, hacky, but works I suppose.