What's up with V8 debugger protocol in SpiderMonkey?

[Goro Fuji]

Hi, everyone,

I'd like to develop SpiderMonkey remote debugger with V8 debugger protocol, not depending on Firefox.
I think it can be possible with the low-level JSDBGAPI and somehow higher-level JSD API (being in $firefox/js/jsd/*), but JSDBGAPI seems too low-level and JSD seems a part of Firefox. I need high-level API which doesn't depend on Firefox.

Is someone trying to do or interested in it?
Or, are there existing projects about it?

Best regards,

[Bobby Holley]

Just FYI, you shouldn't write any new code that depends on jsd. It's going
to go away once jsdbgapi2 is ready to go.

Cheers,
bholley

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[rolando]

Is there any ETA for that? I was also about to do the same (v8 protocol for spidermonkey)

Thanks,
Rolando

[Bobby Holley]

I want to rip out jsd as soon as people will let me. Maybe jorendorff knows
when that will be?

[Jason Orendorff]

On 5/2/12 4:18 PM, Bobby Holley wrote:
> I want to rip out jsd as soon as people will let me. Maybe jorendorff
> knows when that will be?
>

Whenever Firebug runs on jsdbg2. Ask Jan Odvarko. (It is not his
immediate priority AFAIK.)

-j

[Panos Astithas]

I've been talking about this with Honza, and although he would like to do
it ASAP, I don't think he will be able to replace jsd, until all of
Firebug's debugger-related functionality is present in jsdbg2 (severely
regressing Firebug is not an option). Since I'm not that familiar with
Firebug's internals, and Honza isn't terribly familiar with jsdbg2, he
would have to start this project without a clear estimate on the amount of
the work required.

So, my advice to him so far has been to wait until we have a functional
debugger frontend in Firefox, in order to make sure the basics are covered
(and there is working code to reuse) and then see what else is missing. The
plan is to ship the debugger frontend in Firefox 15, so perhaps work on
migrating Firebug to jsdbg2 could start in a month or so.

Cheers,
Panos

[Bobby Holley]

It will be removed from Firefox at the same time it's removed from
Spidermonkey and Gecko, at which point it will no longer be possible to use
it with new releases of SpiderMonkey (since we'll likely be removing
various internal hooks that it depends on).

On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Fuji, Goro <g.ps...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks, guys,
>
> Because Iembed SpiderMonkey directory into my software, I think I can
> use jsd even if it is removed from Firefox, copying it from Firefox
> source tree.
> If jsdbg2 becomes available, I'll investigate it and may migrate it.

> Regards,
> --
> Fuji, Goro (@__gfx__)
>

[Jason Orendorff]

On 5/6/12 11:05 PM, Fuji, Goro wrote:
> Oh, really!?
>
> So, if I start to write a remote debugger just now, should I write
> code with jsdbg2? even if it is a draft?
>
Yes, absolutely.

It is more than a draft. The most important parts are implemented. We
are actively adding features.

Unfortunately there is no tutorial yet. You have to (at least a little
bit) understand compartments in order to use jsdbg2, so there's a bit of
a learning curve getting started. But once you've started it's about as
easy to use as JSD2 and quite a bit safer.

-j

[Wes Garland]

On 7 May 2012 09:01, Jason Orendorff <joren...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> Unfortunately there is no tutorial yet. You have to (at least a little
> bit) understand compartments in order to use jsdbg2, so there's a bit of a
> learning curve getting started. But once you've started it's about as easy
> to use as JSD2 and quite a bit safer.
>

I know JSD is being deprecated (thank God); is jsdbgapi also being
deprecated?

Thanks,
Wes

--
Wesley W. Garland
Director, Product Development
PageMail, Inc.
+1 613 542 2787 x 102

[Dave Mandelin]

We were planning to remove jsdbgapi too. Do you depend on it?

Dave

[Dave Mandelin]

On Monday, May 7, 2012 6:10:10 AM UTC-7, Wes Garland wrote:

[Wes Garland]

On 7 May 2012 16:09, Dave Mandelin <dman...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> We were planning to remove jsdbgapi too. Do you depend on it?
>

No more than we depend on JSD (we use the old 1.7-era shell debugger base
code).

That said, IIRC there are functions that should be in JSAPI which are in
jsdbgapi which might affect others trying to do things like find out
non-enumerable properties from C.

There is also the Piston abandoned FOSS project which uses jdbgapi to
interface with the Eclipse remote debugger. I suspect it has few, if any
users. http://code.google.com/p/piston/

[Dave Mandelin]

On Monday, May 7, 2012 1:26:43 PM UTC-7, Wes Garland wrote:
> On 7 May 2012 16:09, Dave Mandelin <dman...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>
> > We were planning to remove jsdbgapi too. Do you depend on it?
> >
>
> No more than we depend on JSD (we use the old 1.7-era shell debugger base
> code).
>
> That said, IIRC there are functions that should be in JSAPI which are in
> jsdbgapi which might affect others trying to do things like find out
> non-enumerable properties from C.

Good to know. OK, we'll have to check on that when we yank those things out. Thanks for pointing it out.

Dave

[Dave Mandelin]

On Monday, May 7, 2012 1:26:43 PM UTC-7, Wes Garland wrote:

> On 7 May 2012 16:09, Dave Mandelin <dman...@mozilla.com> wrote:
>
> > We were planning to remove jsdbgapi too. Do you depend on it?
> >
>
> No more than we depend on JSD (we use the old 1.7-era shell debugger base
> code).
>
> That said, IIRC there are functions that should be in JSAPI which are in
> jsdbgapi which might affect others trying to do things like find out
> non-enumerable properties from C.

[Miles Thornton]

>
> We were planning to remove jsdbgapi too. Do you depend on it?
>
> Dave

We use jsdbgapi in our embedding (I used it to write a basic debugger).
Sorry, but I haven't been following this closely. When is this going to disappear then?
What is going to replace it? Is it https://developer.mozilla.org/en/SpiderMonkey/JS_Debugger_API_Guide
If so is there a C callable API that can be used and is there equivalent functionality to JSDBGAPI (I'm presuming that there is)?

We are currently using the 1.8.5 build of Spidermonkey.

Thanks


Miles Thornton
Associate  |  Advanced Technology + Research

Arup
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[Robin Ehrlich]

We also use jsd and jsdbgapi in our embedding. We have a fairly complete GUI
that we use for debugging all of the time. We really need all of the
features in jsd and jsdbgapi to be available via C.

[Dave Mandelin]

Would your embedding be able to use the new API? It's much nicer and more robust than jsd.

Dave

[Robin Ehrlich]

> Would your embedding be able to use the new API? It's much nicer and more
> robust than jsd.
>
> Dave

I have only been following the debugger discussions / design very
sporadically. I assume the new API is available via a C/C++ interface.

I have never liked the jsd and jsdbgapi API very much. It is difficult to
use and doesn't provide all of the features I would like. However, we have
spent a great deal of time getting our debugger to work and therefore we
need backwards compatilibity. Over time, I would like to convert to the new
debugger interface, but this would be a background activity.

Our company loves SpiderMonkey and we use it extensively in our products and
we want to continue to use it. Upgrading to 1.8.5 was a lot of work and
worth it because of the performance improvements. I am not sure upgrading to
a new debugger interface will provide enough new features to justify the
cost. That is why it would need to be a background activity.

Robin