Better support compile-to-JS languages?

[thheller]

I'm developing shadow-cljs which is a ClojureScript build tool. The goal is to provide zero-config interop with existing JS tools like this one. It is already zero-config with one exception: File reloading does not work.

ClojureScript organizes code into namespaces, which means that a demo.foo namespace should be in src-cljs/demo/foo.cljs. To make this actually zero config the tool will compile to ./node_modules/shadow-cljs/demo.foo.js which you can then require("shadow-cljs/demo.foo") (or import).

This works nicely, except that yarn start will not reload changes because of this

    watchOptions: {
      ignored: /node_modules/,
    }

I understand why this is there so I'm looking for other ways to still get good interop. One way would be to provide a way to override the watchOptions without eject-ing. I just need a way to getignored: /node_modules\/(?!shadow-cljs)/ in there.

The generate into node_modules "hack" is probably not the recommended way to do things but it just works. Whereas all other solutions I tried required way too much configuration and juggling too many relative paths.

Any thoughts on a solution that doesn't require eject?

[thheller]

I played with a few different options but each seems to have its own issues.

• put generated code into node_modules works but won't get reloaded.
• put generated code into src/cljs and load via relative paths. Causes the code to run through eslint which a bajillion useless warnings and slows down development significantly. .eslintignore doesn't seem to have an effect. Probably also runs through every other babel transform but none are needed.
• put generated code into compiled and include via ../compiled/demo.foo

Module not found: You attempted to import ../compiled/demo.foo which falls outside of the project src/ directory. Relative imports outside of src/ are not supported. You can either move it inside src/, or add a symlink to it from project's node_modules/

The only viable option remaining seems to eject and add the modified ignored. 😞

[gaearon]

Doesn't symlinking work?

You can either move it inside src/, or add a symlink to it from project's node_modules/

It should still be reloaded in this case.

[thheller]

Oh, I dismissed that possibility since there already is a node_modules/shadow-cljs from the npm package. If I symlink node_modules/shadow-cljs-gen -> compiled it indeed works.

Not pretty but better than eject for now. Thanks.