[grouseway]

I feel even a list of the 5 most impactful js projects should include Firebug.

Firebug played a huge role in removing the shroud around javascript and making it approachable to a lot of people, helping them introspect others code, and improving their own code quality. After it, javascript became a beast you could tame rather than a source of endless frustration.

[alxlaz]

It didn't only remove the shroud that made it difficult to work with for beginners, it made an incredible difference in terms of being able to use JavaScript for serious application development. When Firebug showed up, the JavaScript development tools were basically where under 1,000-dollar, pre-Turbo C development tools were on the PC, except slower, too. That didn't stop anyone from writing complex JavaScript programs, of course, but it was extremely useful in getting people to take it seriously, and in making people in established organizations trust it for complex UI work.

I don't have words to say how dreadful JS development was before that. Debugging was extraordinarily limited by default, and we all had bits and pieces of debugging functionality pieced together from a variety of projects, most of which were glorified "debug by printf" hooks which sometimes interfered with the real application logic, and you ended up having to debug your debug code instead of whatever was actually broken.

[armandososa]

Yes! But I think you had to have lived through the process of developing javascript programs without any developer tools to really appreciate Firebug and how indebted we all are to Joe Hewitt. And also, we should mention Chris Pederick's Web Developer Toolbar.

[jitendrac]

+1 for firebug, It really paved the way for skeleton for most of current inspector tools.