Node V8 LKGR version

[tommedema]

I would like to test the --future flag with the Node V8 LKGR branch. It would be great to use nvm to quickly switch between node versions.

Would this be a feature that you can consider?

[ljharb]

nvm does not yet have rc or nightly support, but they're both on the roadmap. As such, nvm doesn't support installing node 8 until it's officially released.

This will likely be possible in the future, but it's not likely prior to the release of node 8.

[jkrems]

If you're willing to do the compilation yourself, you can use the following command to tell nvm about it:

make install DESTDIR=$HOME/.nvm/versions/node PREFIX=/v8.0.0-lkgr

From then on nvm use v8.0.0-lkgr should just work!

P.S.: If you have native modules to build, you might have to provide additional flags to all npm commands, e.g:

npm rebuild --nodedir=$HOME/.nvm/versions/node/v8.0.0-lkgr
npm i microtime --nodedir=$HOME/.nvm/versions/node/v8.0.0-lkgr

[ljharb]

Be aware that any approach like this is almost guaranteed to break in future versions of nvm.

[jkrems]

@ljharb Is that a generic "you're using private implementation details" warning or is nvm actively planning to move away from the current structure (~ "versions are directory names with node installs")? Just want to make sure I have contingency plans for my current nvm hacks. ;)

[ljharb]

@jkrems Both. for nightly and rc support, nvm will almost definitely be changing the structure (in a backwards compatible way, ofc) - and any suffixes that might have worked by happenstance definitely will eventually break, intentionally.

[darcyparker]

I just read about V8 JavaScript Engine: Adding BigInts to V8, and tried nvm ls-remote | grep lkgr and was disappointed not to see it there.

But after reading the comments here, I can understand the lkgr (last known good revision) of the v8 fork is a moving target.

Would this be a reasonable idea? Support something like nvm install vee-eight-lkgr and it would install the latest commit on that branch and tag it with something like vee-eight-lkgr-9a8d615ee58cdc92012885a64479186ab6f1b77c? In this case the tag is a bit like iojs. But instead of a version, there would be a git commit?. It's a long tag name... and ls-remote should probably suppress all of the tag suffixes for vee-eight-lkgr.

What do people do to help manage all of the different builds of nightly and rc, and major forks like v8's?

[ljharb]

@darcyparker install node 10, and use the --harmony-bigint flag. There's no need to use latest v8.