Opera Is My New Best Friend

Firefox has been my browser of choice for quite some time. When writing JavaScript code, I find that Firefox's debugger is an excellent tool to find issues that Internet Exploder would otherwise not reveal.



Last week, I came across an especially insidious JavaScript error. The kind that even my venerable Firefox could not identify. A product that shall remain nameless had some dynamically generated scripts that were not loading into the web page, because they were pointing to an incorrect path.

I had a strong suspicion that a remote JavaScript was performing a function like below:

document.write("<script type='text/javascript' src='wrongpath/scriptfile.js'>");

Even worse, this piece of code was being loaded dynamically. Firefox could not see or tell me that wrongpath did not exist. In a fit of desperation, I installed Safari (for Windows) and Opera. I loaded up Opera, and turned on the debugger.

Lo and behold, the debugger revealed the remote JavaScript files that couldn't be loaded. Problem solved, and I have a very happy client. Opera is definitely part of my default troubleshooting toolbox now. I've got a nice cozy spot for it right next to Filemon.

Tags: opera, browser, javascript, debugger, firefox, safari, filemon, freeware