Clash with alex in haskell

[AbdealiLoKo]

We were adding haskell linter support for coala (https://github.com/coala-analyzer/coala) and found that there was a clash with another package named alex in ghc (haskell).
It seems we need alex from haskell as a dependency for our build - and this clash is a little annoying, as we can only use one of these packages at a time.

Is it possible to make an alias of your alex to alex.js or alexjs ? So that we can simply run alexjs to run your package and alex for the other ?
I'm sure it'd help with https://github.com/wooorm/alex/issues/58 too as CIs (Travis and circleci) seem to have this haskell's alex installed already.

[sils]

FWIW we actually do want to use your alex and the alex haskell lexer in our CI.

[wooorm]

I’m not sure why it’s the task of this alex to name itself differently? (side note: the name alexjs is only used in the domain, nowhere else, I dislike it 😉)

Sure, it’s possible to add another link, but I feel it’s like feature creep.

I think I’ve suggested this before to Coala: instead of using npm install -g, install without the -g flag and use the correct version.
npm uses -g for commands installed by the user; if it’s a dependency it’s best to version it with the host package (coala).

If you’re using npm install alex remark, that means you can use ./node_modules/.bin/remark and ./node_modules/.bin/alex and be sure it’s the correct remark or alex, respectively.
Which seams pretty good?

[sils]

The usecase is that we actually want to use both alex binaries in one run. So global installation or not, if we modify the path we can still only use one of them, right?

[sils]

(FWIW we're using the non global installation of alex by now :))

[wooorm]

Yeah, I understand, either adding a new (symlinked) binary or my proposed solution would work for that, but my suggestion would have nice benefits (like better version control, so if a new version of remark or Alex is published it won't affect coala.)

[sils]

Ah you mean specifying the whole path to alex without using PATH at all. Sorry, didn't get that. It's not feasible for users though... they'd have to give the path to alex which is system dependent.

[wooorm]

Yes, no $PATH, just a local reference to ./node_modules/.bin/alex.

Why would users have to specify that location? You can specify it directly in your code, and there’s no differences between systems (other than / or \).

[sils]

@AbdealiJK that's a feasible solution, similar to how we do it with checkstyle.

@wooorm sorry for being so stubborn and stupid. :P

[wooorm]

@sils1297 Wait, what is @AbdealiJK’s solution?

Does this mean this I can close this?

[sils]

Yeah I think considering your opinions you should close this.

[wooorm]

OK, great! Please let me know if I can help in any other way 👍

[sils]

We will, you know us :)

2016-02-22 22:42 GMT+01:00 Titus Wormer notifications@github.com:

Closed #83 #83.

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#83 (comment).

[wooorm]

Haha 👌

[AbdealiLoKo]

But if we specify ./node_modules/.bin/alex in the code, it wouldn't work is alex is globally installed.

Nor would it work if the user runs coala from a directory other than the root of the place they did npm install :(
i.e. --find-config wouldn't be able to run AlexBear => The editor plugins will not be able to use alex at all.

[wooorm]

I just now saw that users have to manually install the npm dependencies.
I was under the impression coala installed those into its own directory, any reason why that’s not the case? If it would, that means every user can run those linters without having to manually install them!

[AbdealiLoKo]

@wooorm At the moment we do not do that - we may support it later. There are issues that arise when doing something like that, and it's generally better to use existing libraries in my opinion.
Doing something like that feels like windows - where you have to package your own version of any library and it sits inside your own Program Files folder (I'm not a fan of it).

Either way (removing coala out of the equation) - I still think you should consider making a alexjs just for the reason that circleci already has an alex in their path for haskell. And adding both these alex's into a CI would be tough. In general, package name clashes are bad and causes confusion (I remember when nodejs came out).

[wooorm]

@AbdealiJK I think it's more awkward for users to have to install 6+ packages when they want to use coala, whereas with the by me proposed solution, they would Install coala and be done with it.

This problem isn't just alex, or remark, it will arise more and more if there are other 'bears' added.
Note that in the case of node, they didn't change the name of node project.
CircleCI: one can specify a path to a binary.

I'm not going to rename remark or alex: I cannot control if some other package is created in the future, pics one of these names (or if I do that, by accident), and becomes popular.
Sure, I don't name thing 'ls' but Alex and remark are perfectly reasonable.