Unexpected deprecation notice

[ghost]

Output of bower -v && npm -v && node -v:

1.8.0
3.10.3
v6.3.1

Additional environment details (proxy, private registry, etc.):
N/A

Steps to reproduce the issue:

git clone git@github.com:cla-assistant/cla-assistant.git && (cd cla-assistant && npm i)

Describe the results you received:

npm WARN deprecated bower@1.8.0: ..psst! While Bower is maintained, we recommend Yarn and Webpack for *new* front-end projects! Yarn's advantage is security and reliability, and Webpack's is support for both CommonJS and AMD projects. Currently there's no migration path but we hope you'll help us figure out one.

Describe the results you expected:
No warning. No statement of recommendation for Yarn or Webpack.

Additional information:
You're stating public support for a package management tool with an unproven track record which is currently in development with close to 800 open issues. I question the merits behind this direction, especially for a package manager which downloads unexpected dependencies and closes issues before they're resolved. I have feelings about Webpack. But let's start with Yarn because Webpack at least is not still sitting on a point release.

Furthermore, if Bower is no longer a thing the candle which was lit for front-end package managers becomes absolved by an ecosystem (Node) which does not nor will have anytime soon support for ES6 modules - the future of how we will build JavaScript for the browser.

Related: #2452

[shelldandy]

bower died since 2013 just npm install your stuff

[ghost]

Node and browser are two very different things with very different goals. Backwards compatibility being one of them. Otherwise we wouldn't've had 17 different wrapper types prior to ES6. As far as I know Bower also has never forcefully removed a developers package (kik) and given it to a corporation. If everyone used the same tools there would be no choice and, hence, there would be little innovation. I stand firm on this issue.

[vanilla-thunder]

i do not understand the reason for recommending some other tools for different use cases.
Yarn is supposed to be better npm, as far as i understand, but npm is not an easy to use front end package manager, so is yarn.
Also yarn dropped bower support last year.
even composer is better for front end dependencies than yarn or webpack.

[shelldandy]

Like 95% of bower installable things also have a package.json file right there, so the install process wouldn't really be that different you may have to change some paths on your compilations tasks but thats about it 😄

[vanilla-thunder]

sure, most bower plugins might have it, but bower itself is more than just a repository. With bower you can manage almost everything, like templates and plugins for eCommerce plattforms, packages from private repositories, or even backend dependencies no matter in what language they are written in. Bower is an universal easy to use tool.

[ghost]

If you can't beat 'em, join them.

[ghost]

With bower you can manage almost everything

FWIW I'm using NPM to manage front-end dependencies for a theme I created for Hugo. I kind of like the idea of not having to manage a bower.json (originally called package.json, before they switched) in addition to my other package manifest. I'm dropping support for bower in my fetch-inject module. Bower had a good vision, but NPM had the momentum.

I still disagree with promoting other tools. But I'm not going to hold an issue hostage on a deprecated tool. Thanks for all Bower has accomplished. May it go quietly into the night. Cheers.

[pedrosanta]

@jhabdas for more of that front-end quick dependency setup, given that basically I feel bower was 'sabotaged' from the inside, I've looked to http://duojs.org, or even https://cdnjs.com lately. Cheers.

[Grinderofl]

So I just now had to add a --silent flag to the npm part of the build scripts get an unmodified project to build on the build server because out of bloody nowhere, a random warning on top of the build log appeared which caused the entire process to be killed! Now we won't be notified if there's an actual error in the npm part of build :D

Was it really so difficult to make a new version and put the message there instead? Nope, it had to be added on top of every single version that I tried down to 1.1.0. Cheers for another reason to use JS-based tools even less...

[shelldandy]

@Grinderofl lol you do understand this is open source and no one owes you anything right? if you want control build it yourself, or make a fork 😄

im grateful for bower even though I don't use it anymore

[ghost]

I just thought of something super funny. Because of this deprecation NPM is about to become flooded with front-end packages which will never work on Node. Bahahaahaha. 🤣

@Mike3run Anytime a major corporation uses their power to push an open source project forward God kills a kitten. Think of the kittens.

[shelldandy]

You can install stuff via git with npm too you know

…

On Fri, Jun 23, 2017, 10:59 AM Josh Habdas ***@***.***> wrote: I just thought of something super funny. Because of this deprecation NPM is about to become flooded with front-end packages which will never work on Node. Bahahaahaha. 🤣 @Mike3run <https://github.com/mike3run> Anytime a major corporation uses their power to push an open source project forward God kills a kitten. Think of the kittens. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2464 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGwpf0wX8KWBG3i3rirXhRD7mF43buvyks5sG-D7gaJpZM4Nv7Tf> .

[shelldandy]

npm install user/repo#branch

[sheerun]

@jhabdas It isn't mentioned in yarn's release nodes (ping @arcanis), but I've implemented feature in 0.27.0 that allows installing packages without package.json. You can try it by:

npm install -g yarn@0.27.0
yarn add bestander/chrome-app-livereload

It might be buggy, but still it should allow installing bower packages without uploading them to npm.

[sheerun]

Whoops, it seems 0.27.0 doesn't include this change yet. But I hope you get the idea.

[ghost]

@sheerun Totally. Great idea. Feels like this bower deprecation notice may push the onus onto Yarn to invent a new package repository. It was a subtle and sly way for Twitter to bone the community assuming they knew what they were doing (it's a cost center move, for sure).

Maybe jsDelivr could come to the rescue somehow. They're already crawling all of NPM and do some really slick HTTP/2 stuff which may help further speed up Yarn. Don't know what the right way forward is for the community but I have no qualms personally with bastardizing the package spec.

/cc @jimaek

[ghost]

Also, please read this if you haven't seen it yet: https://hackernoon.com/why-everyone-missed-the-most-important-invention-in-the-last-500-years-c90b0151c169. I promise it will elicit some creative ideas on how to manage packages in the future.