Remove the nodemon dependency?

[henriksen]

Right now we're just wrapping nodemon. Should we keep doing that or just implement a file watcher in Kestrelmon?

Pros of keeping nodemon:

• Well established code base
• Flexible out of the box

Cons:

• Hard dependency on external tool
• More work in getting it running

Perhaps option 3: Make nodemon optional. By doing that we also open up the possibility to wrap other, similar, programs.

[spboyer]

@henriksen I like the implementation of nodemon, but I can add the option to use an alternate to nodemon in the options --watcher nodemon

[henriksen]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too. Then you cab use other ones as well. Parameters are just passed through anyway.

[luisrudge]

Can't c# monitor processes? I mean, we shouldn't have to depend on node for this simple task.

[davidfowl]

Why is this using nodemon at all? Can't this just restart the process that it's watching. When you run k --watch, the process suicides when changes are made to appropriate files.

[henriksen]

It's using Nodemon since that was quick and easy for a proof of concept and because Nodemon have some convenient features such x-plat, filtering, ignoring and delaying. But there's no technical reason why we can't do this in C#

[davidfowl]

Not sure that makes any sense as the runtime is the thing killing the process in the case of the KRE. The watching happens by the runtime since it understands what goes into the compilation. The kmon application is responsible for restarting when it dies.

[spboyer]

@davidfowl so are you saying k --watch kestrel should accomplish the same? I didn't get that in testing on OSX in the working directory. kestrel starts, I changed a file in Sublime, but had to restart kestrel to see the change.

[davidfowl]

I'm saying that the only job that kmon needs to do is keep k alive. It doesn't need to watch files

[spboyer]

its either going to be watching k or watching the working directory - either way its watching files correct? the --watch option doesn't seem to be killing k either on file changes.

I see KRuntime/src/Microsoft.Framework.Runtime/DefaultHost.cs#L140 - this is where k should be shutting down correct?

[davidfowl]

That's because the file watcher is busted on mono. But it's being fixed

[luisrudge]

k --watch kestrel does watch for file changes see here. But it just kills the project. What @davidfowl is saying is that kmon should just watch for the termination of the process and restart it, since k --watch does all the file watch

[spboyer]

ok we'll have to look at the adjustment to the kmon cmd when the the file watcher is fixed in mono. @davidfowl is there a Issue we can watch for that?

[henriksen]

Well, there's a reason for using Nodemon, it correctly watches the files on *nix :)

[luisrudge]

That's the whole point: We don't need a file watcher.

[henriksen]

We need it for now, @luisrudge, since k --watch doesn't work on Mono (the way I understand it)

[henriksen]

Also, it was a tounge in cheek comment :)

[henriksen]

The FileWatcher in K is a bit broad. It will kill the server even if you're editing static files like html and css, a bit rough when just a refresh will do.

[davidfowl]

@henriksen False, the file watcher in the runtime watches files as it goes into the compilation. It doesn't die when static files are changed.

[henriksen]

My bad, to me it looked like the line @luisrudge linked to just takes the entire root directory. Must be too late in the evening. Well, that's great then! Time to rewrite!

[henriksen]

Removed in the drop_nodemon branch, needs a bit more testing before pushing to master.