Python 3 support for node-js build stack

[benjaoming]

node-sass 4.3.0 is super-old and uses a stack for Python 2. Since then, a bunch of newer support has landed for both Node and Python versions.

I suggest updating to 5.0.0, since prior releases just seem to be about very small bug fixes and support of many newer Node versions: https://github.com/sass/node-sass/releases

PR incoming...

[benjaoming]

Same issue with bourbon-neat.

[benjaoming]

Oh game over, looks like we are stuck on Python 2 because of Wyrm.

bourbon-neat 1.9 is required, Wyrm is not compatible with Neat 2.0+.
The expected selector for the bourbon-neat dependency in package.json is "~1.9".

[agjohnson]

Python 3 is definitely usable, but you cannot upgrade SASS, Wyrm, or Bourbon.

Upgrading these is a known issue, and the fix so far has be to drop the entire dependency chain and switch to Bootstrap. I would avoid trying to change these dependencies, as there was a fair amount of work that went into finding the correct configuration of dependencies that worked

[agjohnson]

There is a good amount of information on the dependencies here:
#771

[benjaoming]

Are we talking about the same thing? The Node stack needs Python 2 in order to work AFAICT. There are for instance print "foobar" statements in the executed code of the node packages, which fail hard.

[agjohnson]

Yeah, I'm not quite sure where you are running into errors, but perhaps having more information on how you're noticing errors would help.

The theme definitely builds on Python 3, I am using 3.8 locally only because I haven't tried upgrading to 3.11 yet, but I'm sure that also works.

Python 3 tests are all passing here (note, no dependency changes besides Jinja2<3.1 and Node==14.20):
#1316

[benjaoming]

There is something smelly going on.

While I have definitely had issues with a ghost Node 18 installation (which was supposed to be Node 14), I am now also having error-free builds with Python 3!

node-gyp 3.8 (which we are using) is NOT supposed to work with Python 3. That support landed in version 5: https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md#v500-2019-06-13

[benjaoming]

Btw my errors happened during npm run build and contained errors about print statements in node-gyp, which are definitely indicating python 2 code :)

[agjohnson]

I'm mostly sure we worked past these issues, but just for historical note:

The answer here is that a system level node-gyp will take precedence over the locally installed version. So as long as you have a modern node-gyp installed, this package will build. Unfortunately, node-gyp here is a bit more tedious because of the dependency chain back to Wyrm and Bourbon.

[benjaoming]

It seems perfectly fine to close this 👍 I think you could be right that there is something going on with system-level.

[benjaoming]

Thanks for your patient feedback @agjohnson ❤️

[agjohnson]

Always! Closing does make sense I suppose, I don't think we have the appetite to fork Wyrm to upgrade Bourbon -> Neat -> node-gyp 😰

And the answer almost certainly is to drop all of them for modern dependencies or bootstrap.

[benjaoming]

Yes definitely agree: I want to stress that the point here like originated from a misconception... but the intention was fix an issue so we can have an isolated and reliable Docker environment for all this old stuff... but I still hadn't dipped my toes into the full stack :)

I think the Docker environment needs a few tweaks, but they're easier to handle at an appropriate occasion, not as some pro-active venture :)

[agjohnson]

I want to stress that the point here like originated from a misconception

Hah well I'd say it's more than a misconception too, the original issue originated from a very annoying bug. We definitely shouldn't need system level dependencies to build this here 🙃

I believe I tried it here, and I'm not sure if there is an easy way to make Wyrm and friends happy with it, but dropping node-sass entirely, for the Dart sass implementation does work around the node-gyp issue entirely:

readthedocs/ethical-ad-client#149

So, there are maybe 2 options there that don't involve us fiddling with node-gyp any further. I'm hopefully we can avoid applying our efforts to patching up node-gyp installation issues.

At least we have a way to avoid being blocked here for now.