Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies • Hacker News Board

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#11

Post by dozzie » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 7:44 AM UTC

leichtgewicht wrote: post #7

sevcsik wrote: post #4

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this would mean that I will be informed about missing dependencies RUNTIME? And I have to do that multiple times, if there are multiple 'dynamic dependencies' like this. The main reason for having declarative dependencies is to NOT be having to do that.

Yes, the missing dependencies would show up at runtime. Which is a valid and important concern, however: It would be possible (though probably inadvisable) to implement an automatic download of missing dependencies.

Which is as terrible idea. You have some code deployed, and suddenly this code downloads random things from internets without any control whatsoever.

Even worse if the application was deployed behind firewall and can't access internet freely.

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#12

Post by leichtgewicht » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 7:55 AM UTC

nailer wrote: post #10

leichtgewicht wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have to choose which packages you want to install at some point. When you do `npm install && npm start` it will still work as planned. The problem here address is for when you need to deal with a new issue. If it were a handful of extra kb, I'd agree. Of the top off my head I can think of following file formats "somehow" suited for configuration: json, cson, properties files (java), yaml, xml, conf-files (Apac…

Use js files for config. They support comments, syntax highlighting will work out of the box, and you can require them.

A problem that I have with my article is that readers seem to get hung up on the config loading bits when I tried to use it as an example for a more-general problem.

To fix this I added a section to the article: https://t.co/sXJhTYXQvy

(Using executable files for configuration can be an enormous problem for some uses.)

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#13

Post by leichtgewicht » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 7:56 AM UTC

dozzie wrote: post #11

leichtgewicht wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the missing dependencies would show up at runtime. Which is a valid and important concern, however: It would be possible (though probably inadvisable) to implement an automatic download of missing dependencies.

Which is as terrible idea. You have some code deployed, and suddenly this code downloads random things from internets without any control whatsoever. Even worse if the application was deployed behind firewall and can't access internet freely.

It is definitely a bad idea when working on a server, but for a cli tool or some editor that might install it anyways it could be arguably worth a try.

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#14

Post by flukus » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 7:56 AM UTC

leichtgewicht wrote: post #6

arik-so wrote: post #2

Isn't that the whole reason there is a package.json? That way, people just run npm install and already have all the necessary dependencies.

Yes, a package.json is good to get the required dependencies. This article is about possible dependencies that help in cases where you all the possible would mean a huge load on the system.

If you can use a package without them then they aren't really dependencies are they?

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#15

Post by leichtgewicht » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 8:00 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #14

leichtgewicht wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a package.json is good to get the required dependencies. This article is about possible dependencies that help in cases where you all the possible would mean a huge load on the system.

If you can use a package without them then they aren't really dependencies are they?

True, how should those things be called?

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#16

Post by myhf » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 8:41 AM UTC

leichtgewicht wrote: post #15

flukus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can use a package without them then they aren't really dependencies are they?

True, how should those things be called?

A good example is Consolidate, which provides a consistent API to various template libraries. You wouldn't want to force installation of all the unused libraries.

https://github.com/tj/consolidate.js

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#17

Post by dozzie » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 8:41 AM UTC

leichtgewicht wrote: post #13

dozzie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is as terrible idea. You have some code deployed, and suddenly this code downloads random things from internets without any control whatsoever. Even worse if the application was deployed behind firewall and can't access internet freely.

It is definitely a bad idea when working on a server, but for a cli tool or some editor that might install it anyways it could be arguably worth a try.

It's JavaScript. If you make any thing that's merely silly in command line tools, it will end up being adopted where it's a terribly stupid idea.

Plugins are plugins and dependencies are dependencies. Don't mix them up.

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#18

Post by leichtgewicht » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 9:01 AM UTC

myhf wrote: post #16

leichtgewicht wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, how should those things be called?

A good example is Consolidate, which provides a consistent API to various template libraries. You wouldn't want to force installation of all the unused libraries. https://github.com/tj/consolidate.js

Will add a link to the "other problems" list, thanks!

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#19

Post by joesb » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 11:10 AM UTC

He said that approach "d" (implement every implementation) has the problem that "It will take a lot of time to implement all configuration files properly".

Somehow that problem disappears when using his approach, and I think that's even bigger problem than the download size of the dependencies.

Re: Node.js: Be a good dev: offer dependencies

#20

Post by al2o3cr » Mon, Sep 05, 2016, 2:56 PM UTC

Here's some discussion on a related idea:

https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/2dfff4d31634d669f4c198...

In that case, the "offered" dependency was on the mysql2 gem. The intent was similar (don't want to force users of ActiveRecord to install DB adapters they don't use) but ran into an unexpected situation when the generated Gemfile entry didn't have a version constraint but the runtime-loading code did.