I spend most of my time reflecting on what I can do to make Xdebug even better in 2022, and I have come to the conclusion that this is going to be done through multiple improvements.

1. Creating an Xdebug Course: explaining in great detail how Xdebug works, how you use it, how you can get the most out of it, and many scenarios on how to set-up debugging in different environments. This needs to go beyond referential documentation pages, and will hence become a combined set of videos and tutorials, with examples and work-along exercises.

2. Developing an set-up-free debugger: A new tool that can be used through Xdebug Cloud, that would allow you to debug without IDE.

3. Xdebug Recorder and Player: A new feature in Xdebug which would allow for a full request to be stored in a file, including every intermediate state. Combined with a player, which would allow for replaying the request and interrogating every variable at every point during the execution of said script, through the debugging protocol and interacting with your IDE. The recorded files would be self contained, without needing access to the (original) source code. Besides "step over" it would also have a "step back", and perhaps even a slider to slide back and forwards through time.

4. Rewriting Xdebug's Profiler: so that it is more lightweight, and so that it can be enabled for specific parts of an application/request. In addition to this I am looking at sending the profiling data over the debugging protocol, so that visualisation tools do not need to find and read files.

5. Creating a profile analysis tool: To automatically analyse profiling files and apply logic so that it can point to the most likely cause of bottlenecks.

Let me know which one of these interests you most, and whether you would be willing to pay for such a tool.

Xdebug Cloud is the Proxy As A Service platform to allow for debugging in more scenarios, where it is hard, or impossible, to have Xdebug make a connection to the IDE. It is continuing to operate as Beta release. Packages start at £49/month.

If you want to be kept up to date with Xdebug Cloud, please sign up to the mailinglist, which I will use to send out an update not more than once a month.

I did not create any new Xdebug videos this month on my YouTube channel. But as I mentioned earlier, I am working on a more comprehensive course. Stay tuned!

In January, one new business supporter signed up:

• VEMA eG

Thank you!

If you, or your company, would also like to support Xdebug, head over to the support page!

Besides business support, I also maintain a Patreon page and a profile on GitHub sponsors.