Hi Guix.
Do people do web-dev on Guix System? I need to dive back into the
whole Node.js NPM ecosystem - something I've not touched for some
years and I'm wondering how people go about e.g. installing NPM
packages on Guix.
I started by reading (guix build node-build-system) as one does. I
think I have a decent grasp on exactly how it goes about
installing those NPM dependencies. Unsurprisingly you need to
package all those dependencies as Guix packages, then supply them
as inputs, whereupon the extra 'patch-dependencies phase will
actually lookup those packages in your inputs and replace deps
paths under "dependencies", "devDependencies", "peerDependencies"
with store items as needed. Configure phase actually runs local
install with --offline and --ignore-scripts which is
understandable followed by build phase which does npm run build
where the script is available. Followed by some tar and npm
install from local package dance, which I don't fully understand,
but I get the general idea and where we end up (I still haven't a
clue what 'set-home phase does and why).
This is all very cute and reproducible, but ... JS web developers
aren't exactly known for avoiding dependencies. Even just getting
express-js to run would require me to package ungodly number of
those dependencies.
If guix repo is indicative, looks like I'm not the only one to
realise packaging those would be too much work unless the entire
community somehow decides to come together and do an "NPM Summer
of Hard Unpaid Labour".
So, how do people program for the Web, Node on Guix. Does =npm
install= which defaults to local installation work well enough for
most packages? An outline of what to expect and known problems and
workarounds would be very useful.
Thank you
- Web development on Guix: nodejs, npm and all tha... t
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