Contribute - Debugging with V8 Inspector

[bebraw]

I'm submitting a feature request

Webpack version:
1.10.x/2.x

Current behavior:
We don't have any documentation on how to use the new node-nightly --inspect --debug-brk feature with webpack. There are a few little details to implement so it is worth having documentation on it.

Expected/desired behavior:
Having a small section in documentation explaining how to leverage the power of node-nightly which contains the --inspect flag letting you use the full chrome dev tools to profile, find memory leaks, and debug your webpack builds.

• What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior?
  There are small leaky abstractions from miss use of certain webpack features. Mine being one of them. A useful profiler that people are familiar with like ChromeDevTools can be invaluable

Moved from webpack/webpack#2724 .

[pksjce]

@bebraw - So, now in node 7 this is available. I have used

node --inspect=8888 --debug-brk ./node_modules/.bin/webpack

But, I don't understand what I could profile and how it could be useful to me?

[bebraw]

@TheLarkInn Any thoughts on this?

[TheLarkInn]

Yeah so when builds are slow you can use the profile tab and record to find out what functions are taking up the most time from there. Should allow you to diagnose long running our use heap snapshots to capture memory allocations and see where leaks might be occurring.

[skipjack]

@TheLarkInn should we just port this article you wrote to a guide?

[skipjack]

I may try to pick this up. Been working with node scripts more recently so I'd be interested to read through @TheLarkInn's article and flesh it out into a guide/article. I think it might actually fit in the Development or Contribute section better though.

That said, if anyone else finds this and wants to pick it up, just ping me and we can figure something out (i.e. I'm fine with passing it along as well).

[skipjack]

I do think this makes more sense in the new Contribute section. Will start working on a PR soon.