Support for less v4

[mdel-cm]

Hi,

I just tried to upgrade to less 4.0.0 in an existing project, which gives me the following error:

Error: less version 4.0.0 is not currently supported
    at Object.exports.load (C:\Users\mdel\git\devbox\git\sensum\node_modules\accord\lib\index.js:29:13)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\mdel\git\devbox\git\sensum\node_modules\gulp-less\index.js:9:29)
    // Longer stack trace ...

Node: 14.15.1
Yarn: 1.22.10

The actual error message seems to originate in accord. Let me know if I should I should open an issue at their repository as well or if you need any more details.

Thanks and best regards,
Michael

[stephenlacy]

@mdel-cm Yes, please open an issue on the accord repo. I will see if I have time to add 4.0 support as well

[StreetStrider]

Isn't it (in general) that less should be declared as a peer dep?

[mdel-cm]

Sorry, Christmas holidays happened and I missed following up here. Just created the issue at the accord repo today ...

[lubber-de]

accord seems to be a dead repo since 2 years. Could you try to support less 4 by yourself without using accord?

[stamminator]

Am I missing something? How is it that the de facto library for compiling LESS in gulp, arguably the most popular Node task runner out there, has not supported the latest major version of that task runner that came out over three years ago?

[StreetStrider]

@stamminator I think that's totally ordinary, because both gulp and less (and preprocessors in general) are not in their's prime age. I think most of the teams with modern tech stacks are already migrated or migrating in one of the popular directions like css-in-js or css modules with postcss transformations while legacy stacks just ok with non-edge versions of their build utilities.

[stamminator]

@StreetStrider That's a very good point, but I don't like what you're saying because it sounds to me like I'm overdue on learning the latest and greatest in tooling 😁 I just want things to stay still, but alas, this is the JS ecosystem after all.

[StreetStrider]

@stamminator I'm a huge fan of less and gulp. And I also think that bundling css with js bundler is generally not a good idea. However, in my experience that's just facts, there is declining interest in both gulp and preprocessors, sadly.

[RaptorCZ]

So, any solution?

[yocontra]

Hey all - just thought I would chime in here.

A number of gulp plugins relied on https://github.com/jescalan/accord which appears to be unmaintained now and not updating things to the latest versions - this is going to require any plugin that relies on accord to be rewritten to use the libraries directly, or somebody needs to fork accord and update things.

Given that LESS is not so popular anymore (most people are using postcss), it isn't super high on the priority list for the team to rewrite the plugin solely so that it supports a newer version of LESS. That being said, if somebody is using LESS and feels passionately that they need to use LESS V4 and wants to rewrite this plugin to switch off of accord - gulp plugins are extremely simple and easy to write, and I would happily accept a PR. A simple less compiling plugin for gulp will probably clock in at like 30 lines of code.

IMO I think the simplest avenue would be for somebody to fork accord and pick up the torch there, update the project to support latest versions of things, and then we can switch all of these plugins over to that (accord-next as a name?)

[Helium-Z]

@contra Hi Chris, I have created a pull request to support less v4. Please check it. Thanks

[yocontra]

Published as v5 - thank you @MisterLuffy!