Notice: please go directly to docs

These pages were written a very long time ago. You will get a better idea of what Bugfoo is by going to the documentation section, which was written in the past few days. To get the best "feel" for Bugfoo it is probably best to read the two-page Basic Usage Guide.

greetings to visitors from the May First Reboot

Thanks for taking the time to look around and evaluate Bugfoo.com; your visit is appreciated.

I was so impressed with the general notion of the May First Reboot and the sites submitted to previous editions I decided to submit the Bugfoo site to the competition to get your general feedback even though the first public testing version of Bugfoo is not ready yet. The design of this site, and that of the Bugfoo debugger itself, has been inspired by entrants in the previous May First editions. I look forward to your feedback and critique.

Bugfoo itself makes extensive use of advanced css and wouldn’t be possible without the contributions of many designers, thinkers, and web-standards experimenters all over the web. With the advancement of web-based technologies, scripting languages, and networked solutions, it’s essential that the web interface be developed as a reliable, cross-browser platform for all sorts of terrific things. Thanks to everyone who’s helped make the web a friendlier and more interesting place.

site and credits

The design you see here, nor the Bugfoo debugger for that matter, would not be possible without the work of a many others; if you’ve enjoyed the design, please also take a note of those to whom we owe some gratitude.

The Bugfoo site uses a number of advanced css techniques which contribute to its unique look while keeping it fast and web-friendly; one of the stylesheet techniques for reducing bandwidth and clutter (and maybe mostly, time) is, as far as I know, new; I call it “stylesheet image management”. You can read more about the nitty gritty techie details here.

mini-FAQ

we only just launched …

The Bugfoo site was launched May 1, 2005, before the public test release was ready. As a result, no great wealth of time was available for filling the site with pithy remarks and lucid prose … our apologies for the rather terse nature of the FAQ, and other parts of the Bugfoo site – that prose will come in good time. HTML and PHP are not our mother tongue.

what will be Bugfoo’s type of license? Will it be open source?

Bugfoo will be a proprietary script, and most of it will be encoded, most likely with the Ioncube encoder. You won’t have to install Ioncube; there will be a copy of it in the standard version that is used automatically by Bugfoo, without your having to mess around with anything.

why a PHP debugger / script analyzer for PHP? Wouldn’t another programming language be more suited for the job?

PHP is a fantastic programming language, and may well be up for more than you think it is. There are other great free and commercial debuggers / analyzers out there. But PHP allows for rapid and intensive programming for a very feature-rich and user-friendly bit of software. Since it’s in PHP, we are able to add a lot more interesting parts to it in a reasonable amount of time to add to your scripting and debugging pleasure. It also means we can make use of plug-ins written in PHP itself. If you have any knowledge of PHP, you’ll be able to write your own functions that are just a click away to help you out finding the information you need. You won’t be adding the same lines of code to your scripts over and over again.

what will the public test version be like?

Pretty much like what we’re describing here. All of the major components have been written, and we are in the process of adding a few features and debugging Bugfoo. Yes, even a debugger needs to be debugged; in fact, it has to be extensively debugged, since runtime flaws are even more critical in a debugger than in most scripts. Some of the functions listed in the feature list have not been written yet, but by and large, they’re not the biggies that take a lot of time and work.

The public test version will come with the advice to use it on your local computer only. That is, not to use it on a public web server connected to the internet. This is for security and stability reasons. We won’t have completed our internal security audit yet, and we’ll also want some feedback first before we can confidently recommend you use it on a public web server. For this reason, the public test version will be called “Bugfoo local”.

The public test version will be free, of course. It may have a time limit of a few months, after which we’d want you to upgrade either to the free or full version of Bugfoo or Bugfoo local, depending on how far we are with development.

We will be very greatful for feedback once the test version is out, so we’ll be selecting members of the forums who have contributed in reporting bugs or in being generally helpful and thanking them with user licenses at no cost for the full version. In doing that, we intend to be generous, and not just pick a handful of people, so by all means feel encouraged to chip in on the forum boards once they’re up.

We warmly invite you to contact us if you would like us to inform you about the release of the public test version when more information is available. Please also mention this in the subject field of your mail so we can find it when that day comes.

what will the free version of Bugfoo be like?

Our current plan is to make the free version of Bugfoo just as powerful as the full version; the main difference will be in ease of use. The free version will probably have a limited number of functions available on one, or maybe two, toolbars; selecting options other than these will still be possible, but require adding / modifying lines in a configuration file. All in all, just a few seconds work really. However, we hope that most of you will use Bugfoo so frequently and extensively that saving those few seconds every now and then will add up to making the full version a real value. However, this is still speculation; no firm decisions have been made yet.

are there any free debuggers that do what Bugfoo does?

There are free debuggers which are probably even better than Bugfoo for some tasks; check out Gubed and Xdebug. However, we don’t know of any with similar capabilities to Bugfoo, and doubt that once you’ve tried Bugfoo, you’d ever want to do any serious PHP coding without it. You probably won’t want to run any scripts on your site without first checking them out with Bugfoo, either.



	home what it is about & FAQ docs support releases about main credits about the site contact Notice: please go directly to docs These pages were written a very long time ago. You will get a better idea of what Bugfoo is by going to the documentation section, which was written in the past few days. To get the best "feel" for Bugfoo it is probably best to read the two-page Basic Usage Guide. greetings to visitors from the May First Reboot Thanks for taking the time to look around and evaluate Bugfoo.com; your visit is appreciated. I was so impressed with the general notion of the May First Reboot and the sites submitted to previous editions I decided to submit the Bugfoo site to the competition to get your general feedback even though the first public testing version of Bugfoo is not ready yet. The design of this site, and that of the Bugfoo debugger itself, has been inspired by entrants in the previous May First editions. I look forward to your feedback and critique. Bugfoo itself makes extensive use of advanced css and wouldn’t be possible without the contributions of many designers, thinkers, and web-standards experimenters all over the web. With the advancement of web-based technologies, scripting languages, and networked solutions, it’s essential that the web interface be developed as a reliable, cross-browser platform for all sorts of terrific things. Thanks to everyone who’s helped make the web a friendlier and more interesting place. site and credits The design you see here, nor the Bugfoo debugger for that matter, would not be possible without the work of a many others; if you’ve enjoyed the design, please also take a note of those to whom we owe some gratitude. The Bugfoo site uses a number of advanced css techniques which contribute to its unique look while keeping it fast and web-friendly; one of the stylesheet techniques for reducing bandwidth and clutter (and maybe mostly, time) is, as far as I know, new; I call it “stylesheet image management”. You can read more about the nitty gritty techie details here. mini-FAQ we only just launched … The Bugfoo site was launched May 1, 2005, before the public test release was ready. As a result, no great wealth of time was available for filling the site with pithy remarks and lucid prose … our apologies for the rather terse nature of the FAQ, and other parts of the Bugfoo site – that prose will come in good time. HTML and PHP are not our mother tongue. what will be Bugfoo’s type of license? Will it be open source? Bugfoo will be a proprietary script, and most of it will be encoded, most likely with the Ioncube encoder. You won’t have to install Ioncube; there will be a copy of it in the standard version that is used automatically by Bugfoo, without your having to mess around with anything. why a PHP debugger / script analyzer for PHP? Wouldn’t another programming language be more suited for the job? PHP is a fantastic programming language, and may well be up for more than you think it is. There are other great free and commercial debuggers / analyzers out there. But PHP allows for rapid and intensive programming for a very feature-rich and user-friendly bit of software. Since it’s in PHP, we are able to add a lot more interesting parts to it in a reasonable amount of time to add to your scripting and debugging pleasure. It also means we can make use of plug-ins written in PHP itself. If you have any knowledge of PHP, you’ll be able to write your own functions that are just a click away to help you out finding the information you need. You won’t be adding the same lines of code to your scripts over and over again. what will the public test version be like? Pretty much like what we’re describing here. All of the major components have been written, and we are in the process of adding a few features and debugging Bugfoo. Yes, even a debugger needs to be debugged; in fact, it has to be extensively debugged, since runtime flaws are even more critical in a debugger than in most scripts. Some of the functions listed in the feature list have not been written yet, but by and large, they’re not the biggies that take a lot of time and work. The public test version will come with the advice to use it on your local computer only. That is, not to use it on a public web server connected to the internet. This is for security and stability reasons. We won’t have completed our internal security audit yet, and we’ll also want some feedback first before we can confidently recommend you use it on a public web server. For this reason, the public test version will be called “Bugfoo local”. *The public test version will be free, of course.* It may have a time limit of a few months, after which we’d want you to upgrade either to the free or full version of Bugfoo or Bugfoo local, depending on how far we are with development. We will be very greatful for feedback once the test version is out, so we’ll be selecting members of the forums who have contributed in reporting bugs or in being generally helpful and thanking them with user licenses at no cost for the full version. In doing that, we intend to be generous, and not just pick a handful of people, so by all means feel encouraged to chip in on the forum boards once they’re up. We warmly invite you to contact us if you would like us to inform you about the release of the public test version when more information is available. Please also mention this in the subject field of your mail so we can find it when that day comes. what will the free version of Bugfoo be like? Our current plan is to make the free version of Bugfoo just as powerful as the full version; the main difference will be in ease of use. The free version will probably have a limited number of functions available on one, or maybe two, toolbars; selecting options other than these will still be possible, but require adding / modifying lines in a configuration file. All in all, just a few seconds work really. However, we hope that most of you will use Bugfoo so frequently and extensively that saving those few seconds every now and then will add up to making the full version a real value. However, this is still speculation; no firm decisions have been made yet. are there any free debuggers that do what Bugfoo does? There are free debuggers which are probably even better than Bugfoo for some tasks; check out Gubed and Xdebug. However, we don’t know of any with similar capabilities to Bugfoo, and doubt that once you’ve tried Bugfoo, you’d ever want to do any serious PHP coding without it. You probably won’t want to run any scripts on your site without first checking them out with Bugfoo, either. more questions? Feel free to contact us.

	© 2005