274737 - Venkman documentation inadequacies

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Other Applications Graveyard :: Venkman JS Debugger, defect)

Description

[Robert Brown III]

Venkman documentation does not properly cover the use of Venkman with the
Firefox browser. For one thing, there are inaccuracies in the description of the
application's layout -- as evidenced by an entire chapter devoted to the 
description of a nonexistant "project view" on Mozilla's own site
(http://www.mozilla.org/projects/venkman/venkman-walkthrough.html). For another,
there is little information on Venkman's specific quirks with different versions
of Firefox (actually, there is no description of Venkman's quirks with Firefox
on http://www.svendtofte.com/code/learning_venkman -- all instructions including
the downloading instructions are oriented only towards its use with Mozilla).
Venkman's behavior on Firefox is apparently different from its behavior with the
Mozilla browser, yet none of these differences are documented. There is a FAQ
which describes which version to use with Firefox (I have 0.9.84), and describes
some startup differences, but the operation and behavior described at
http://www.svendtofte.com/code/learning_venkman does not match the actual
behavior of the program. Furthermore, in answer to a previously filed bug
report,  mention was made that Venkman does not work with some versions of
Firefox (actually, in my experience so far, it apparently fails to work with
versions .8, .9, and 1.0 of Firefox, which I am running independently on several
different machines running several different operating systems, so this may or
may not be relevant); it would be useful if it were documented somewhere which
version(s) of Firefox this program is *supposed* to work with. Of course,
another problem I have found with Venkman documentation (as it pertains to
Firefox) is that information on its operation with Firefox is sparse and
scattered in different places, making it easy to miss something if you are
trying to get up and running quickly.

Because there are differences in its operation with Firefox, there needs to be a
prominant place where Firefox users can get information on using Venkman --
including which versions of Firefox are expected to work with Venkman. FAQs
solve some of the installation and startup problems, but since the behavior is
so different from its behavior with Mozilla Browser, there should be seperate
documentation. Or at minimum, some additions to current documentation that make
it possible for Firefox users to use the software.

Comment 1

[James Ross]

You're talking out your arse quite a lot there.

The only difference in operation between Firefox and Mozilla is how to open it.
Nothing else /should/ be different, though there are differences in some bits of
code - which are there to make it work the same.

I guess reading the top of the page
(http://www.mozilla.org/projects/venkman/venkman-walkthrough.html) is beyond
you, too. "This document describes how to use Venkman 0.8.6 and earlier. If you
are running one of the Venkman 0.9.x releases from the development page, you may
find the Venkman 0.9.x FAQ  more helpful." You say you're using 0.9.84, which by
my maths is NOT 0.8.6 or earlier...

And, as it happens, Venkman 0.9.84 is what I use weekly, sometimes daily, to
debug JS code in Firefox 1.0.

The comments on http://www.hacksrus.com/~ginda/venkman/ are due to s slight
miscommunication, I think. 0.9.84 will ONLY EVER work on Firefox 1.0. Nothing else.

Comment 2

[Robert Brown III]

My, my, Mr. Ross:

   Are all of you people associated with Venkman rude and ignorant?

   I suggest you look closely at Robert Ginta's comments to my Bug #274623, 
where he puts me down for *not* reading 
http://www.svendtofte.com/code/learning_venkman. That was one of the reasons 
why I referred to it in this bug. I am well aware of its inadequacies for 
describing Venkman 0.9 -- that is one of the reasons why I am calling your 
documentation inadequate.

   Furthermore, maybe the behavior of the program is *supposed* to be the same 
(that is still unclear since the documentation is so bad), but based on the 
problems I am seeing, it clearly isn't.

   You might want to have a care here, friend: that "****" you are hearing 
from may be your own...

Comment 3

[James Ross]

The behaviours ARE the same between Mozilla and Firefox, so please shut up about
that.

"I am calling your documentation inadequate" and I can call you all sorts of
things, should I want, but it wouldn't help things.

I suggest that if you want more than the tutorials and so on found around the
web, you're going to have to write it yourself. Many people use Venkman on a
daily basis, and don't have such problems using it. It's not exactly a Visual
Studio-level IDE...

Comment 4

[Robert Ginda]

like James pointed out, that doc is for an ancient version of venkman, and it
even says so at the top.