I use it every day and fall back to node-inspector only when I really need 
to walk stack a lot. At the same time, I think it should not be part of 
node core and exist as npm-installable script. (I'm big fan of "No" [1], 
but unfortunately other core functionality can't be removed without much 
pain today). I started to extract debugger to external module [2] some time 
ago to use it in my vim-based debugger [3] but realised that it's possible 
to reuse debugger client from core by just doing `require('_debugger')`.

My suggestion:
  - remove debugger when full feature complete clone exist in npm
  - make 'node debug' try to call this module if installed and print 
warning if not ("internal debugger has moved to npm. Please do 'npm install 
some-debugger-module-name'")
  - document protocol client library and debugger cli language. Make 
debugger client language not based on javascript (when you do "continue" in 
repl you executing "continue" property read handler). Fix broken 
functionality (up/down, set breakpoint is broken in debugger, I use 
"debugger" keyword or switch to node-inspector when I need to set 
breakpoint) - This would be much easier to do with external module than 
node core. (own release cycle, no need to sign contributor license 
agreement etc)

I can volunteer to do these steps if there is enough interest to move in 
that direction.
 
[1] http://vimeo.com/56402326
[2] https://github.com/sidorares/v8-debugger-protocol
[3] https://github.com/sidorares/node-vim-debugger

On Wednesday, 13 November 2013 02:38:36 UTC+11, Ben Noordhuis wrote:
>
> The built-in debugger is a major pain to keep working and some 
> informal polling suggests that no one really uses it or is even aware 
> that it exists. 
>
> I'm toying with the idea of dropping it altogether and replacing it 
> with some hooks for projects like node-inspector and node-webkit-agent 
> because that's what everyone seems to be using anyway. 
>
> Before I go ahead, I would like to know whether there are people out 
> there that would be negatively affected by such a change. 
>
> If you are or if you disagree with the approach outlined above for 
> other reasons, now is the time to speak up!  :-) 
>

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