Fails for >=v0.11.9 (--harmony)

[rwxrob]

Working on a personal sample boilerplate for KOAN + Dokku and ran into this annoyance since gulp does not call node --harmony (and probably shouldn't):

SyntaxError: Unexpected token *

(which I'm just including to help with search hits)

#!/usr/bin/env node -> #!/usr/bin/node --harmony fixes it hack-ishly for now, but must be a better way.

Perhaps making gulp happier from the scripts section of package.json would cover it. The following doesn't work but would be nice:

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node --harmony server.js",
    "build": "node --harmony gulp"
  }
}

[yocontra]

Is there any downside to calling with --harmony?

[rwxrob]

Well it's mildly annoying that I have to change the code installed by npm install -g gulp after installation to add --harmony for all projects that use gulp on that system, unless I bite off on local gulp installs or nvm.

As for the other point about adding a build entry to npm, that looks like I failed to fully understand the scripts section. One cannot simply add more and expect them to be executed. I was under the wrong impression there. npm start only works because it is one of the ones that can be defined in package.json.

[heikki]

@robmuh Try npm run-script build.

[rwxrob]

Thanks this worked:

node --harmony node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js

which I, of course call now from build as npm run-script build to save typing, lol. I could have just made build call node --harmony node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js and listed in build in package.json. Oh the crazy things I'll do to make it just feel right. At least this way someone looking at the sample will get a quick education in what is actually going on without surprises. I don't know how many times I've forgotten --harmony, (remapping alias doesn't quite cut it).

Ya know, I wish there were a way to pass in this and all the other V8 arguments to node from a config file instead of the command line, but I haven't turned anything up in Google yet.

[yocontra]

@robmuh This is a problem you'll have with any node-based CLI application. I did just find https://github.com/dcodeIO/node-harmonize that we could run if --harmony is detected to relaunch the node process with that flag passed in

@tkellen Does this seem like something you would want to support in liftoff or should this be gulp specific?

[laurelnaiad]

If liftoff could solve this across CLIs that would be awesome. This is a very frustrating issue and it's not just gulp that suffers from it. It would be great to have control over both which node runtime is used and the flags, and to do it based on a config file hierarchy the way liftoff is doing it would be nifty.

[tkellen]

Hmm. This feels like something that belongs in Liftoff. I am planning on supporting multiple configuration files in the near future (e.g. with the right config, you could have Liftoff find .gulprc globally, or in some local dir, see gulpjs/liftoff#8). This would at least get us as far as having a unified way to find that sort of configuration.

I'm a little unclear what it would take to support all the v8 flags correctly, though. @robmuh or @stu-salsbury, would either of you be willing to take a stab at implementing a lib to do this? Assuming one existed, I could definitely see Liftoff consuming it.

[yocontra]

@tkellen We would basically need to make a list of all the node flags and do a check for each, then if any exist respin the process up with them like so https://github.com/dcodeIO/node-harmonize/blob/master/harmonize.js

[yocontra]

oops ^

[laurelnaiad]

I happen to be working on a project that is specifically not targeting node 0.11/es6 at the moment, so it would be tough to justify much time right now. However, if a spare moment comes along I can look at. Bottom line, not a great idea to count on me here..

I haven't even looked at how liftoff works... I've just gotten as far as messing with my OS environment in order to get the right node and the right flags in the right situation. If I can clear up some time I'll take a look at how liftoff does its magic and think about how a lib could fit into its use case that would also be more generally useful. The thing about this is that when you multi-version node, you kind of commit to having different global npm databases on your machine, so on a project by project basis you need to manage your npm globals for the runtime that you're intending to use. The developer will need to activate the right npm when they install global module so that it goes to the right place. I'm not sure that there's much that could be done about that part, but I still think there's room for automating the process of selecting a node binary and flags based on liftoff config hierarchy. Whether it belongs in its own module is debatable if the locus for storing the configuration to support it is liftoff configuration.

[rwxrob]

Everything I do -- even production stuff -- is node 0.11, generators are just too great to not use immediately. ;)

However, I am about to start 'summer camp' season (which means almost no side-project time), but I would love to help as much as I am able. I absolutely love gulp and, from the sound of it, the direction for Liftoff.

I looked at harmonize and my first impression was that it won't run on Windows, bash does. I know. Who cares, right? lol. But this will be an issue for many, (just not me since moving our students over to a personal Ubuntu Trusty VM with node v0.11.11 preinstalled, which is also so great for working with Dokku and nginx training).

If nothing more I will follow this thread closely. Thanks again.

[rwxrob]

@contra Also just tried harmonize and found that it messes up the koa and livereload server processes I have in my watch task. Perhaps something that can be worked around, but not worth the hassle at the moment.

[yocontra]

@robmuh Why wouldn't it run on windows? It just launched a subprocess and proxies stdin/stdout

[rwxrob]

Well just glanced at it and it looked like it was trying to replace the parent with the sub. Whatever the reason, I do know that a perfectly working gulpfile that starts a server.js stops working when I add harmonize. There are so many other, simpler workarounds that I have no problem with them. Thanks for the feedback though.

[tkellen]

http://github.com/tkellen/node-v8flags

Dunno when I'll have time to roll this into Liftoff. PRs welcome!

[tkellen]

Spoke with @tjfontaine. If we can get the v8 flag listing exported from V8 upstream, he'll expose it in node. That'll eliminate needing to scrape for flags the way I am in node-v8flags. Again, not sure when I'll have time for this, just putting it out there.

[cowboy]

FWIW, looked into this for Grunt in the past and came to the conclusion that without a v8 flag listing, it would be a total mess to maintain.

[tkellen]

http://github.com/tkellen/node-v8flags

[cowboy]

You might consider caching the result of that keyed off of process.versions.v8 to avoid extra overhead at runtime.

[tkellen]

Agreed 100%. My plan is to cache it at install time and do a runtime check and throw if the version mismatches, telling the user to npm rebuild (until this is available in node).

[yocontra]

@tkellen You can run this as a preinstall script (serialize list to json file). Any node version changes will require an npm rebuild anyways which will re-run the script. This way you don't have to maintain a list but it's still not done at runtime

[tkellen]

Aye, that's the plan. For now though, I'm hoping the lib being there is enough to motivate someone to implement this on Liftoff. Otherwise this will have to wait a bit--too many other things going atm.

[yocontra]

@tkellen Is there an issue on the liftoff repo I can roll this one into?

[tkellen]

There is now. Just spent an hour or two tinkering with a modular solution to this problem--I should have a resolution by the end of the week.

[yocontra]

Cool - moving discussion to gulpjs/liftoff#20

[tkellen]

The functionality needed to make this work in Liftoff (or any other node binary) is now on npm in these two packages:

• https://github.com/tkellen/node-flagged-respawn
• https://github.com/tkellen/node-v8flags

If I don't get this integrated into Liftoff before Friday, it'll land sometime late next week.

Am I missing anything here @sindresorhus @phated @contra?
https://github.com/tkellen/node-flagged-respawn/blob/master/index.js#L20-L31

[yocontra]

@tkellen A var in front of that child variable 😉

[tkellen]

Hah, right you are. I originally had the execute and needed methods together--execute either returned false or the child process. Missed that in the refactor. Fixed!

[tkellen]

ref #680

[xpepermint]

thx @tkellen!