Why are you not using git submodules ? this seems like something you'd want to try out if most of your dependencies are git repos.
On Sunday, 23 June 2013 18:12:28 UTC+2, Alex Kocharin wrote: > > Hi guys, > > TL;DR: I developed a package that monkey-patches npm to work with > package.yaml files without any json ever written to a disk. Hope it will be > useful. > > Published as npm module a month ago: https://npmjs.org/package/ynpm(github: > https://github.com/rlidwka/ynpm ), and I think it's ready to use now. > > So, 6 months ago I asked in the mailing list about how to place comments > in package.json files ( > https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/nodejs/NmL7jdeuw0M ) > and found no good answer for that. So for a long time I used package.js and > a Makefile to generate package.json. Rather ugly solution. > > We were developing a large and complex project, and I submitted dozens > pull requests to other packages. But until these PR were merged, I needed > to point these dependencies to my git repositories with these changes in > place. And THAT is why I desperately needed comments. > > So anyway... these are fundamental issues with JSON: > > 1. JSON have no comments, you can't comment out why did you put some > dependency, but not the other. > 2. JSON have no trailing comma. So you can't easily remove an item, add an > item or interchange two arbitrary lines in a list. > 3. JSON require ugly enquoting both keys and values in object. Javascript > require enquoting values only, and YAML doesn't require quotes in most > cases. > > JSON is designed to be written by computers, not humans. Humans could read > it easily, but maintaining JSON is a pain. > > Why YAML? Well, I would certainly not use XML. :) Anyway, YAML it's easier > to read and edit than all other widely known serialization formats, and it > solves all issues described above. I would fully support if Isaacs returns > package.js back to work (see 3y old github issue > https://github.com/isaacs/npm/issues/408 ), it would be good enough, but > it doesn't seem to happen. > > So, a lot of other people suggested to use YAML. That's the most recent > github issue https://github.com/isaacs/npm/issues/3336 , but there were > others. > > And there are some existing solutions to do that, for example npm-yaml: > https://npmjs.org/package/npm-yaml. But all these solutions just > pre-compile package.yaml before npm is executed. It's not good enough > because json remains written on the disk, and if npm modifies json, yaml > remains unmodified. > > So, I wrote a wrapper that replaces fs.* calls, so whenever npm reads > package.json file, and if there is a yaml file, we compile and return yaml > contents. If npm writes package.json, we change yaml instead. > > I made sure that all npm functionality is working with this new approach. > For example, in order to make `npm version` working I replaced > execFile("git", ["add", "package.json"]) with an appropriate substitute. > Other features required to replace readdir and file streams, and so on. > > If something is wrong with this approach or if something breaks beyond > fixing with future npm versions, I'll go for a fork. But as for now things > seem to work out nicely. > > PS: to guys who write YAML parsers: could you please write a module to > change one particular node in YAML file without rewriting the entire file? > Because it is the only thing here that ain't very good. I know it can't be > done in a general case, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. > > Regards, > alex > -- -- Job Board: http://jobs.nodejs.org/ Posting guidelines: https://github.com/joyent/node/wiki/Mailing-List-Posting-Guidelines You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs?hl=en?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "nodejs" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
