Peer dependencies for build plugins

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Peer dependencies for build plugins #164

Open klaussner opened 7 years ago

klaussner commented 7 years ago

It would be helpful if build plugins could depend on npm packages from the application's node_modules. That would have two advantages:

Package authors wouldn't have to update their build plugins every time a new version of an underlying npm package is released.
Users of the build plugins would be able to use new versions as soon as they are released.

Maybe this could be implemented as an API like this:

Npm.peerDepends({
  'svelte': '1.x'
});

Npm.peerDepends would be similar to Npm.depends but instead of causing the packages to be bundled with the build plugin, it would check if the installed versions match the given version constraints and output an error if they don't. The required npm packages would have to be installed as devDependencies on the application level:

meteor npm install --save-dev svelte

zimme commented 7 years ago

The required npm packages would have to be installed as devDependency

Wouldn't it be better if it would check both dependencies and devDependencies so this could be used by "normal" packages and not just build plugins?

klaussner commented 7 years ago

Good point! Then it would be a replacement for checkNpmVersions, I think.

zimme commented 7 years ago

I guess the question becomes, should we just be using checkNpmVersions instead or do we need this in Meteor?

zimme commented 7 years ago

I guess it would be nice to have both peerDepends and devDepends alongside depends.

klaussner commented 7 years ago

The problem is that build plugins can't access packages from node_modules. checkNpmVersions just reads the package.json and compares version numbers, so that doesn't help in this case.

What would devDepends be used for?

zimme commented 7 years ago

What would devDepends be used for?

For creating a meteor package that depends on linting/project meta stuff maybe? I didn't really have a use-case I was just thinking out loud.

mitar commented 7 years ago

arggh commented 5 years ago

Because of this restriction on Meteor, I had to fork @klaussner 's package svelte:compiler just so I can keep my app's version of svelte in sync with the compiler's version - and also just to keep the version up to date!

CaptainN commented 5 years ago

I created a PR for meteor-svelte which uses findUp to grab the package.json file (that part was already in there!), and figure out where the node_modules directory is, then loads specific packages it finds in package.json from node_modules (svelte in this case).

The technique could be turned into some useful utility method (maybe Npm.peerDepends).