Install Backbone does not install dependencies

[alexstrat]

I'm doing:

$ bower install backbone

But I don't get Underscore installed as dependency. See my bower list --map (with jquery-ui as additional successful example). Backbone part is empty !

{
  "backbone": {
    "source": {}
  },
  "jquery": {
    "source": {
      "main": "components/jquery/jquery.js"
    }
  },
  "jquery-ui": {
    "source": {
      "main": "components/jquery-ui/ui/jquery-ui.js"
    },
    "dependencies": {
      "jquery": {
        "source": {
          "main": "components/jquery/jquery.js"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Why ? I noticed that backbone git repo does not include a component.json. Is that related ? In this case, should not bower use package.json ? Is there an other repo to use ?

[satazor]

@alexstrat it's exactly because it does not include a component.json and we removed the package.json fallback support since v 5.0.0.
For now you can simply do npm install --save underscore to do it manually and make a PR to the backbone guys, adding the component.json

[satazor]

Oops, didn't mean to close.
@alexstrat If they refuse to add one, we can make a mirror it in https://github.com/components.
Please let me know how it goes.

[alexstrat]

Okay thanks, i've done it also for underscore.

But I tried to install backbone coming from my own repo (https://github.com/alexstrat/backbone) I don't get underscore neither:

$ bower install git@github.com:alexstrat/backbone.git

Something to do with tags ? :/

[satazor]

Yes, bower fetches the last tag or the latest commit if no tags are available.
Though we will implement ways to get over it, please take a look at: #107

[alexstrat]

Hmm okay..

So as you see in @jashkenas's comment, backbone and underscore people are not ok with adding a component.json. Their reason seems legit..

So, we need a mirror for both underscore and backbone, I think.

[satazor]

For me it doesn't make sense. We had package.json support but there was much more disadvantages then advantages. For instance, people specified libraries that where only available in the npm and bower could not fetch them.

I was expecting the backbone team to reject the PR, they are not very permissive people. Anyway, we can mirror the backbone repo in our own components.

//CC @paulirish @addyosmani @sindresorhus

[sindresorhus]

Not at all surprised either. Let's mirror it. Need to find someone to help keep them up to date.

[alexstrat]

Is there a way to keep this mirrors up to date automatically ?

[addyosmani]

I agree that we should mirror it. Its going to take a while before
framework authors broadly adopt a component.json file.

[satazor]

@alexstrat At the moment there isn't. We hope the community to slowly adopt bower until it become a standard.
Hopefully this mirroring stuff is temporary.

We indeed need someone to maintain it, preferably a recurrent backbone user.

[jashkenas]

I realize that this ship has already sailed for Bower a long time ago, but since I got pinged on this ticket -- here's my two cents:

Asking every JavaScript library in use today to add an additional configuration file is not acceptable. That's what folks have done in the past, and if you want to support all of the package managers, you currently have to do:

• package.json
• component.json
• “jam”: {}
• index.js
• main.js
• “bpm”: {}
• seed.js
• “volo”: {}
• “mappings”: {}
• “ender”: {}

... and so on, and so forth. It's pretty silly, especially when you consider that all of the above configuration is asking for the same information: What is the name and version of the library? What are the client-side dependencies? What are the server-side dependencies?

If, instead of adding an additional configuration file, you figured out a way to get those pieces of information answered within package.json (the file that most other package managers already (ab)use), perhaps in consultation with the npm folks ... that would be wonderful.

[satazor]

@jashkenas The problem with package.json is that it specifies dependencies for the node environment, not for the client environment. Using it to specify dependencies for the client side is wrong.

We long supported package.json fallbacks and what happened is that it caused a lot of errors and confusion, simply because some dependencies where registered in npm (and only work in node) but not in bower's registry.