[ANN] trepanjs: a more gdb-like debugger for node

[Rocky Bernstein]

I have split off lib/_debugger.js from nodejs, and made that a separate npm package.  This package is called trepanjs as it is similar to my other "trepanning" debuggers for python, ruby, or perl which are all gdb in spirit.

Why do this crazy thing? 

1. As a separate npm package, the lifecycles of the debugger and nodejs release are decoupled. Especially in the beginning, there will be more frequent releases of the debugger. 

2. I can have dependencies on other npm packages. Right now, I have just nopt for options processing, but I am contemplating though marked-terminal to provide better source-code terminal highlighting.

3. I can provide the latest level of debugger support with older version of node. In a way this is another restatement of item 1. The focus here is that you can get newer debugger features even on your older nodejs installation. (When I was developing this, the current debugger code wouldn't work on my installed version of node. So I had to add a 'util' compatibility module for util)

4. It gives the code space to grow. In node, the debugger is one 1700-line file. In my project, each debugger command is its own file each under 100 lines. After splitting out each command file, one of the first things I did was add more extensive on-line help.

And of course...

5. the gdb command set is more familiar, so proficiency you might have in gdb can be transfered here and vice versa. 

 

[Cristian Wilgenhoff]

This is awesome!

Some links were wrong, here you have the right ones: 

- https://www.npmjs.com/package/trepanjs

- https://github.com/rocky/trepanjs

[Rocky Bernstein]

Thanks