DevTools Debugging Stories

This repository contains a couple of demos for core debugging stories, that need to be supported by DevTools to provide a fundamental, seamless debugging experience.

Usage

TypeScript Projects

The following projects have been adapted from todomvc.com.

What to check: Open the debugger and the console, observe whether breakpoints, the object inspector, the watch expressions, call stacks etc. all work as well as they would when debugging vanilla JS code.

TypeScript, React, Parcel

cd typescript-react
npm install
npm start

The server will be running at http://localhost:1234.

TypeScript 1.5, Angular, no bundler

cd typescript-angular
npm install
npm run compile
python -m SimpleHTTPServer

The server will be running at http://localhost:8000.

TypeScript 1.4, Backbone, local

cd typescript-backbone
npm install
npm run compile
open index.html

Bundler examples

NextJS, Webpack

This is an example project following the starter template for Learn Next.js.

What to check: Open the debugger, search for index.js and other authored files in the Page tree and Quick Open panel.

What is shown: Intertwining of authored and deployed sources.

cd nextjs-webpack
npm install
npm run build
npm run dev

The server will be running at http://localhost:3000.

Webpack, Express, HMR

This is an example project following the guides from webpack.js.org/guides/hot-module-replacement.

What to check: Open the debugger, click the button on the page, and make some changes to second.js in your favorite editor.

What is shown: HMR will update the page and also add a duplicated script in the Page tree and Quick Open panel.

To run the stock webpack server with HMR:

cd webpack-basic-hmr
npm install
npm run webpack-serve

Or, to use a custom express server with HMR middleware:

npm run express-serve

The server will be running at http://localhost:8080.

Performance examples

Bad animation and scrolling

What to check (not in sequence):

1. Open the Performance panel, start recording, scroll down. Observe the unnecessary yellow background color changing on the number of comments.
2. Open the Performance panel, start recording, click on a news to toggle the details (slide in and out). Observe the animation.

What is shown: Animation, long task, paint reflow. This codelab will walk you through the issues and how to fix them: https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/codelabs/web-perf

How to run it:

1. Get the code: [https://github.com/googlearchive/udacity-60fps-samples]
2. To run it, use any local server, e.g. http-server.

Bad algorithm

What to check: Open the performance panel, start recording, and click on the "+" button on the page. Observe the long tasks.

What is shown: A performance issue in a long task which stems from some expensive computation. There is something that takes a long time (is "hot"), and usually occurs once but it can also happen multiple times. E.g. processing large amounts of data with an inappropriate algorithm on the main thread.

cd react-redux-bad-algo
npm install
npm start

The server will be running at http://localhost:3000.

Bad architecture

What to check: Open the performance panel, start recording, and click on the "+" button on the page. Observe the long tasks.

What is shown: A performance issue in a long task which stems from the broad app architecture, rather than a singular expensive computation. There is something that is inexpensive, but dominates by occurring repeatedly many times. Usually the solution involves having to rethink the execution model. E.g. in case of react+redux, having to compute many selectors for each state change to determine which views must update, in views which would not have to update.

cd react-redux-bad-arch
npm install
npm start

The server will be running at http://localhost:3000.

Simple Test Cases

Clone this repository, and run

npm install
npm start

afterwards point your browser to http://localhost:8000.