![rerunning scripts in ghostlab rerunning scripts in ghostlab](https://www.stemdetectivelab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/scratch-ghost-sprite-move-script.png)
From this point it will take the vorlon.js team considerable time to “catch-up” with even basic functionality like script debugging and editing, which is functionality that most developers, these days take for granted.Īs I write this, the team is busy re-implementing the JavaScript console, Resources tab and many other things.Įven Weinre and GhostLab realized that re-implementing the front-end would be massiv task, and probably also a waste of resources, so from the beginning GhostLab is simply re-using Chrome DevTools inside their app, and Weinre is using Safari’s WebInspector. It’s even sub-pair with Firebug that was super-seeded by “native’ DevTools years ago. When taking a look at the current state of the home-rolled front-end in vorlon.js it’s sub-pair with existing tools.
![rerunning scripts in ghostlab rerunning scripts in ghostlab](https://miro.medium.com/max/3072/1*FlumuiaDCe0npzP5GTgQeQ.jpeg)
So I simply don’t understand, why you would completely disregard what’s already out there (and work’s pretty damn well), and start rolling your own home-grown front-end. These projects are both open-source, and hundreds of people has over the last many years, spent I-dont-know-how-many man-hours on tweaking both the UI and the functionality of their “DOM Explores” and “Networking inspectors” My first specific criticism of the vorlon.js is that the team currently is re-implementing much of the functionality that already exists inside tools like Chrome DevTools and Firefox DevTools.
![rerunning scripts in ghostlab rerunning scripts in ghostlab](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/hp-spring-5.jpg)
Re-implementing a front-end that already exists In the perspective of Weinre and GhostLab, vorlon.js simply looks to be yet one-of-the-many Microsoft-variants of tools that’s already exists. But this extension layer could easily have been built on top of the existing tooling and protocols, instead of re-inventing everything again. However vorlon.js adds one new thing to the table, and that’s plugins, that allows developers to write “extensions” in order to inject custom functionality. In my view GhostLab is the new and modern flavour of Weinre. Today the Weinre project is kinda dead, but recently we have also seen commercial solutions like GhostLab which is using a similar approach, to enable Chrome DevTools to be connected to multiple browsers. Weinre enabled users to use Safari Web Inspector with other browsers, via a much similar architecture to vorlon.js, as it’s also relied upon a script injection technique to emulate the Webkit remote debugging protocol. But this functionality was explored by Patrick Mueller in the Weinre project. However there’s a difference, and that’s the built-in DevTools doesn’t have a notion of other browsers. The front-end is a simply client of a remote debugging server hosted by the browser. This is exactly how the built-in browser DevTools are working in modern browser like Chrome, Firefox and Safari.
![rerunning scripts in ghostlab rerunning scripts in ghostlab](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/superplus-Hills_of_Steel_2_GamePlay.jpg)
Vorlon.js is built on node.js and is using socket.io to manage it’s connections to the browsers and the front-end is simply communicating to the central (local) server that provides an aggregated view of the browser information. Vorlon.js doesn’t bring anything new to the table I’ve been reading the announcement blog-post of vorlon.js a few few times to wrap my mind around the purpose of the project, and I get that the point of the project is a “An open source, extensible, platform-agnostic tool for remotely debugging and testing your JavaScript.”, but I simply don’t understand why the team has chosen an approach that includes to re-invent (as in re-implement) much of the logic, our community have spent years on building and perfecting. To me, this particular front-end work seems completely unnecessary as a front-end for this kinda of functionality already exists - and has for years. I’ve been following the vorlon.js project for a while now, and recently I’ve started to notice a big amount of work being put into building a “DOM Explorer” and other parts of “DevTools-like front-end”, which trigger this Why make own DOM Explorer over Firefox or Chrome DevTools? We already have it :)- Kenneth Auchenberg June 24, 2015 I might be completely wrong in my criticism. Preface: This is quite an opinionated post, and everything here is said without have had a chat with the team, and is purely based upon the observations I’ve made since the announcement and by following the project. This post is a follow-up discussion of brief Twitter thread between and where I asked into the reasoning behind building Vorlon.js.