Embed request as dependency

[moehlone]

Hi there,

why is request not installed as dependency in request-promise-native? I think it is overhead to install it manually when only using request-promise-native - people who use dependency checkers will have failing pipelines, because it is unused. Or is there another reason?

Best
Philipp

[mastermatt]

This comment/question/request is better suited for the https://github.com/request/promise-core repo. That being said, my two cents:

Setting request as a peer would changes the way npm saves that lib in the dependency graph. In the case of simple dep graphs, having a dep next to versus nested under makes no difference. However, if you consider this lib a plugin to the request ecosystem (which I believe the core devs do) then it does make a difference because as soon as you add more than one plugin, the behavior changes in how those plugins interact.

If the core devs do not consider this lib a plugin, then request should be added as a dep of promise-core and that would be that.

As a note: back when the dependancies of this repo were defined (pre-npm3) peerDependencies would auto-install just like dependencies.

[analog-nico]

Great thoughts @mastermatt ! Since you mention the pre-npm3 era, it’s not a relict from that time. In a few words, npm does not have the perfect type of dependency that would suit the relationship of both libs. For further details, please have a look at my Was moving request to peerDependencies the best choice? issue.