An interesting side benefit this opens up the possibility of debugging languages that compile down to JavaScript, such as Coffeescript or Objective-J.
Just attach an editor or a terminal via a websocket, provide a mapping layer between the high-level (Coffee) and low-level (JS) source (line numbers, variables and such), and you're in business.
I'd be willing to pay good money if someone managed to hook this up with Vim.
Making changes on Webkit and copy/pasting back is a pain.
I understand it's not trivial, as a lot of html/css and even javascript may be conditionally echoed to the browser by some php, python, etc, so a quick dirty search/replace plugin hack won't do.
But still, if someone took it for himself the job of doing so, we'd finally have a decent web developing workflow for a change.
Given there are well established debugging tools in Emacs (and Vim too?) I cannot imagine this being terribly difficult, assuming the protocol is reasonable and consistent.
Awesome! Weinre http://pmuellr.github.com/weinre/ provides similar but more limited functionality and has saved me in so many mobile-specific WTFs I've lost track.
Weinre also works where this currently does not (on mobile devices where you generally can't just run a custom version of the browser for testing purposes).
This is enabled in the blackberry playbook by default, which is a really really compelling reason for me to get one.
I have wondered 1. why it isnt enabled in android webkit by default, 2. how hard it would be to enable given the source, 3. if any android devices are coming out with it enabled.
but I havent had enough time to do anything more than wonder, weinre is doing an awesome job in the meantime
I got excited when I read their intro that talked about how mobile platforms lacked the real estate for proper debugging, until I realized there's no way this is going to help in current iOS mobile app development.
I'd be surprised to see Apple adopt this. It would be interesting to see this supported in the iPhone simulator at the very least.
Just attach an editor or a terminal via a websocket, provide a mapping layer between the high-level (Coffee) and low-level (JS) source (line numbers, variables and such), and you're in business.