Better Node.js Console Dumps with console-probe

Writing JavaScript in the Node.js environment has always felt a bit more difficult; probably because browser developer tools have become incredibly powerful, interactive, and visually appealing.  Using console.log on the client side isn't the best of experiences and obviously isn't interactive.

Though not interactive, I've found that console-probe is an improvement over console.log, providing me highlighted property types, lengths, and a nice visual tree view.

const probe = require('console-probe')

const donut = {
  'id': '0001',
  'type': 'donut',
  'name': 'Cake',
  'description': 'A small fried cake of sweetened dough, typically in the shape of a ball or ring.',
  'ppu': 0.55,
  'common': true,
  'batters':
  {
    'batter':
    [
      { 'id': '1001', 'type': 'Regular' },
      { 'id': '1002', 'type': 'Chocolate' },
      { 'id': '1003', 'type': 'Blueberry' },
      { 'id': '1004', 'type': "Devil's Food" }
    ]
  },
  // .....


// Highlight nicely to console
const prober = probe.get()
prober(donut)

console-probe is one of those nice, luxury utilities that can make debugging in a static environment just a bit better!