Make 'install-node-and-npm' goal optional

[seanyerg]

It would be really nice to not install node or npm at all, as both are pre-installed on all of our development machines and build agents (as well as on the PATH). Whenever I attempt to simply run and 'npm install' followed by 'gulp build' or 'grunt build' without the 'install-node-and-npm' goal, I get a path not specified error. I understand this is because it is looking to run node from {workingDirectory}/node, but it would simply make just as much sense to remove such a dependency in the case where node versions were managed outside of this plugin. This is a different request than optionally specifying the node directory as I would never perform a clean of said directory.

[eirslett]

Thanks for the suggestion, but using the global installation of Node and npm is against the philosophy of this plugin - that everything should run locally. In case you have two different project on the same build server that require different versions of Node and npm, you can no longer use the global installation.
If you're concerned about the stability of your build, there are a number of options - one is to run the build once on your machine and then commiting the "node" directory into the codebase.