Duplicated code when using Scribe and plugins: How to manage packages? about scribe

[mitar]

Thanks for opening this.

[OliverJAsh]

next release will greatly reduce the dep graph of individual npm packages w/ better inlining & still offering all packages

https://twitter.com/jdalton/status/459452985290924032

[OliverJAsh]

More info on that: lodash/lodash#437 (comment)

[guybedford]

@OliverJAsh thanks for copying me in, not sure how much I can help as I'm probably quite biased at this point, but it does sound like the fairly common package management problem.

Typically you can solve package management, multi-versioning or dynamic loading, but never all of these at the same time.

Handling multi-versions in RequireJS can certainly be done with a "@" suffix. And shortcuts to exact versions can be set up with map config or alias modules (eg require(['jquery'] -> require(['[email protected]'])). But as you say you lose Bower support here.

Have you considered an npm approach?

[guybedford]

Perhaps consider if you can work on the build problem and package management problem, without having multi-version support first.

[bengourley]

npm solves exactly the problem that you are describing via npm dedupe.

Due to your AMD-preference I don't know if you would be able to make use of npm without a hefty refactor, but I think the benefits are worth it. If you use node style requires then you open up the whole of the npm registry from which to consume modules, not to mention the benefits of using a proper package manager and module system!

This way your core and all of you plugins can list their own dependencies. If they are different, you will get all those that are required, and if they can depend on a common version, npm dedupe will make sure only one copy of that version exists.

It is trivial to maintain support for AMD / browser global consumers. You can simply build an AMD/global standalone bundle with $ browserify --standalone moduleName (more info here).

Hope this helps. This approach works really well for me.

[mitar]

@substack, what would be your opinion here? Use node.js+browserify?

[OliverJAsh]

@guybedford @bengourley Thanks for your input, very much appreciated. We are currently considering these options.