NVM shouldn't source a shell script to start, it's too slow

[mlindner]

NVM causes way too much slowdown on terminal start because it's sourcing a shell script. It shouldn't have to do this for the NVM to work. This is in need of a full redesign of this idea. I don't know who thought that sourcing a slow shell script on shell start was a good idea.

Has no one in this project heard of lazy initialization? NVM has become an impediment to work, not a help.

[ljharb]

You're incorrect; the reason there's slowdown is entirely because auto-using invokes npm config get prefix - sourcing a shell script is not slow and never has been slow.

If you source with --no-use, or if you nvm unalias default and have no .nvmrc file, you won't see any slowdown (a slowdown that only a minority of users suffer from).

Lazy initialization is simply incorrect because it wouldn't make all global npm modules available on the command line along with node and npm.

The long term solutions are either to 1) have npm get faster, or 2) have nvm reimplement the npm config get prefix logic, but somehow make it faster than npm itself.

[kaiwk]

If we source nvm in .bashrc, it will be sourced every time on shell starts.
If we source nvm in .bash_profile, at least for Linux, it will be sourced once when user first login.

Maybe we should export nvm functions, and encourage user source nvm in .bash_profile?

[ljharb]

It should be sourced every time each shell starts.

[mikeymandm]

Ok thanks

…

On Tue, 14 Apr 2020 at 08:29, Jordan Harband ***@***.***> wrote: It should be sourced every time each shell starts. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2084 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/APFTVUUKBDUNNMAWM4AYEZLRMRXLDANCNFSM4IJQKEIA> .

[benwinding]

I was able to speed up terminal starts by changing the load script to have the --no-use option:

# Load NVM
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ]] && source "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" --no-use

It's like 1 second faster for every terminal start now... which is life changing!

[ljharb]

For those that have found the standard process (without --no-use) slow, please check out #2317, and if it's faster, please comment with your benchmarks.