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When mock-ups and screenshots fail to deliver the idea that you are trying to convey, a prototype can deliver a strong impact. But why should you prototype with GreaseMonkey when you can check out code from source control and mock a web page with a few shabbily scribbled lines of javascript ?

I often find myself comparing GreaseMoney with the Netbeans swing builder for thick clients. Its great because you can deliver a quick UI without worrying about the underlying functionality. But where GreaseMoney differentiates itself is in its ability to mock a live web page. By live I mean one that is already deployed on production. Never underestimate the impact of mocking a feature on a live website. Changing the innerHTML of a few HTML elements and hacking out some JS can get you quick results.

There are times when you work with SSL traffic. Your website might be protected with a certificate so that traffic between you and the client is secure. At times like this, being a developer is troublesome. Browser cache settings need to be analyzed by looking at the HTTP headers. Encoding / Content type may need to be analyzed to ensure that a particular page is displayed correctly. These things cannot be looked into if the traffic is secure. There are situations under which the environment is secure but you must still sniff the data. So how do you manage this ?

Tools like Charles (A debugging proxy) help you do this. Charles allows you to proxy to a secure connection over a protocol like HTTPS and still read the traffic. So how does it do this ? Lets have a look.