Repackage as a generic module

[fregante]

This module is thankfully set up to be very configurable and it allows to load other prefixes as well, like postcss-*, but I didn't know that until after I searched all the internet for a similar but generic plugin.

It turns out I can just do this:

var requireAll = require('gulp-load-plugins');
var $          = requireAll();
var postcss    = requireAll({pattern: 'postcss-*', replaceString: /^postcss-/});

My question is, can we get a generic load-plugins module and have this one rely on it to load gulp plugins? Nothing really would change, with the exception of the findability of the extracted module for generic use.

[callumacrae]

+1, I actually thought this the other day when I was using postcss.

load-plugins already exists, but doesn't support everything gulp-load-plugins supports. It's looking at paths instead of a package.json which probably makes it less performant, and it doesn't support lazy loading which definitely makes it less performant.

cc @jonschlinkert because open source competition is pointless :)

[jackfranklin]

:+1: a few people have asked for this now. I've been kind of hesitant but I'm being pushed in the direction of doing it. If we can collab with @jonschlinkert that'd be awesome. Be cool to update load-plugins with some of the features this plugin has.

[callumacrae]

It would pretty much just be a case of taking the code from this module and changing the default options, right?

There's also load-modules, again by Jon(?!): https://www.npmjs.com/package/load-modules

[jackfranklin]

Basically, yeah. And then making this module effectively be that new module + some predefined config.

[jonschlinkert]

Be cool to update load-plugins with some of the features this plugin has.

I'd be happy to collaborate on implementing whatever changes are needed. I can add anyone as a collab as well

[jonschlinkert]

@jackfranklin how about if I take a stab at implementing some of the features in load-plugins. if anything is missing, or if I miss a nuance somewhere, we can tweak until it get where it needs to be...

[jackfranklin]

@jonschlinkert that sounds great! More than happy to collab or work on some PRs. Just let me know :)

[jonschlinkert]

@jackfranklin added you as a collab. PRs would be great :)

[jonschlinkert]

@jackfranklin just wanted to follow up on this. if we re-work some of the logic/options in load-plugins so it more closely matches the API of this lib - while also being more generic than this lib, would you be open to using load-plugins here? that way we can combine efforts and share knowledge on what's working best for users?

so basically we would just implement load-plugins with the defaults that make the most sense for gulp, and users would end up with the same experience and API they have now on gulp-load-plugins. but if someone needs to do customization or wants to load non-gulp plugins, then they could use load-plugins (while still having a similar API and experience).

thoughts?

[callumacrae]

I think the goal here should be to get gulp-load-plugins to this state:

var loadPlugins = require('load-plugins');

module.exports = function (options) {
  options = Object.assign({}, options, {
    pattern: ['gulp-*', 'gulp.*'],
    replaceString: /^gulp(-|\.)/
  });

  return loadPlugins(options);
};

(ES6 for example only)

That would be neat :)

[jackfranklin]

@jonschlinkert thanks for the reminder, sorry for not getting involved before as I said I would.

I completely agree with @callumacrae here, if we can make sure load-plugins provides everything we need, then gulp-load-plugins can become a simple wrapper around it, with some configuration that makes sense for Gulp specific cases. Any more complex cases can just customise the options gulp-load-plugins exposes, or just skip this plugin entirely and use load-plugins. Does that sound about right?

[jonschlinkert]

great! that sounds perfect, and don't sweat it, I've had a lot on my plate too!

I'll take a stab at refactoring load-plugins and report back here when it's done. then we can make any changes needed to get it to where it needs to be

[fregante]

Is https://github.com/jonschlinkert/load-plugins done? Seems to be working fine for my use case (postcss)!