I’ve done web development off and on for a long time (1995 or so), and I’ve done a fairly good job of keeping up on the backend, I think. From CGI/perl to Zope to Apache, mod_python, and Django, dashes of AJAX, with side journeys into .NET/Mono, Rails, and even more exotic toolkits and frameworks. But I’ll admit, I’ve been slow to pick up new tools on the desktop. In particular, for some bizarre reason, I’ve resisted using Firebug, the web development plugin for Firefox.

And boy, was that stupid! I finally bit the bullet last night and installed the Firefox 3 beta and Firebug, and wow. I worked on some CSS tweaks for some of my pages today, and got more work done in two hours, with less effort, than probably the last 4 months! Awesome. This is a killer tool, and I’m so glad I finally trusted all the folks who give it a 5-star rating. Heck…you learn something new every day!