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[I'm the author of diff-so-fancy, Steve helped with shipping it as a standalone script] NPM?!? :) A lot of people below are asking why a bash script (that dep

[I'm the author of diff-so-fancy, Steve helped with shipping it as a standalone script] NPM?!? :) A lot of people below are asking why a bash script (that depends on a perl script) is being recommended to install via NPM? The short reason is that NPM is the most straightforward way to get a script installed as a global binary in a cross-platform manner. This approach has worked quite well with `git-open`[0]. Asking all users to deal with the PATH is not my ideal. In addition, I wanted a reasonable upgrade path, in case there are neccessary bugfixes. It's not a great experience if users identify bugs but the fix means they manually find it/download/PATH-ify each time. :/ That said, I'll add some Manual Install instructions to the readme so it's clear how to do this on your own. :) ( Edit: Here they are… https://github.com/stevemao/diff-so-fancy/blob/master/readme.md#manual-install https://github.com/stevemao/diff-so-fancy/blob/master/readme... ) [0] https://github.com/paulirish/git-open https://github.com/paulirish/git-open

Manishearth 11y ago
> That said, I'll add some Manual Install instructions to the readme so it's clear how to do this on your own Yeah, that helps a lot :) I saw this, was like "cool, I want to use this", and then noted that it uses npm. I avoid installing ruby and node apps -- I have nothing against either, just that I currently don't use either language or have a dependency on a major tool written in those; but they pull in a lot of deps which take up space (at least, my experiences have been that many of these tools install way too much -- probably because I don't use either and all the "default libs" aren't on my system). On my previous machine I had lots of issues with this, so as a rule I avoid these things unless absolutely necessary. I know others who are of a similar opinion. Fortunately I realized that it was just a shell script, and installed it directly :)
satbyy 11y ago
> The short reason is that NPM is the most straightforward way to get a script installed as a global binary in a cross-platform manner Really ? All Unix-like systems (incl OS X) can do this: /usr/bin/install myscript.sh /usr/local/bin PS: Oh, just realized that there is npm uninstall as well, but not /usr/bin/uninstall (though it's just rm -f anyway)
- goldbrick 11y ago
  `install` isn't package management, or anything close to that.
semi-extrinsic 11y ago
Wouldn't it be easier for the end user if you used pip/PyPi? Essentially all Linux distros include Python, but there are very few that ship with Node.js installed by default.
- LyndsySimon 11y ago
  I can only speak for myself, but my systems all prohibit installation of packages into the system Python namespace by default.
  - tomjakubowski 11y ago
    Yeah, I try to avoid "sudo pip install" for CLI utilities if I can (and discourage its use to others). I put ~/.local/bin on my PATH (nonstandard XDG -like convention) and use "pip install --user" instead. I've seen too many Python environments hosed by folks who aren't Python experts to keep suggesting that "sudo pip install <CLI tool>" is a thing most users should be doing.
    - LyndsySimon 11y ago
      I use ~/.bin/ for what sounds like the same purpose. I'm not sure I'd call that a convention - it's just what made sense to me - but it does ease issues requiring that userspace executables be on my $PATH.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    So you need to be root to write to /usr/local/bin/. How does NPM magically solve this? (pip has the `--user` flag to install for just the current user, as tom points out.)
    - LyndsySimon 11y ago
      It doesn't solve it, and I don't think I claimed it did - I simply inferred that I don't think installing it into the system (or user) Python is a good idea either.
stevemao 11y ago
I see a lot of projects that's written in other languages on npm, especially bash. Substack even published c code to npm. I think it makes the script more accessible especially for nodejs users. I don't mind publishing it to other package mangers.
- txutxu 11y ago
  Please do not confuse 'more accessible specially for', with 'less accessible and exclusively for' nodejs users.
viraptor 11y ago
Or use FPM (https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm/wiki https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm/wiki) and abstract the whole packaging idea. linux and mac packages supported.
ossreality 11y ago
No. Nope. Never. Best of luck! You're absolutely losing users by putting `npm` on the page. Personally, I laugh when I see software packaged this way, and it's even more absurd after hearing your supposed rationalization. Not happening. I'm far from alone.
gkya 11y ago
I had no reasons to use this package, but now I have one to not use it. I only wanted to see what it was because the name suggested something fun. Why whould someone who can't add $HOME/bin to $PATH be using git?
- argonaut 11y ago
  I realize your question is rhetorical, but there are tons of people. Anyone new to programming, in a CS course that uses git, for example, would be familiar with basic git but many would be unfamiliar with the path (or on Windows).
  - gkya 11y ago
    I concur, but they need not stay unfamiliar with it. The concept is easy: When you type the name of a program and hit enter, I look it up in a list of directories to see the first one that contains a file with that name. That list is $PATH. Any programmer will have to deal with search paths and stuff at some point in their life, and probably very early on, when they'll want to run their own scripts.
    - lowboy 11y ago
      I agree that most programmers will run into $PATH at some point, but why force an order on them? Maybe they just want to get started using things like fancy diffs provided through package managers like npm.
- crottypeter 11y ago
  git is a content tracker. People who don't need to edit PATH might still need to track content.
  - gkya 11y ago
    Git is a revision control system. Nodejs is a programming language. NPM is a tool to fetch libraries for node programs. Thus NPM and Git are software development tools. A software developer or a power user are supposed to know what $PATH or %PATH is.
hobarrera 11y ago
Last I tried, npm didn't even work on IPv6, even if there's some transition mechanism in place (eg: NAT64). It's really pretty awful as a distribution mechanism. Why not a simple Makefile?

Manishearth 11y ago

> That said, I'll add some Manual Install instructions to the readme so it's clear how to do this on your own Yeah, that helps a lot :) I saw this, was like "cool, I want to use this", and then noted that it uses npm. I avoid installing ruby and node apps -- I have nothing against either, just that I currently don't use either language or have a dependency on a major tool written in those; but they pull in a lot of deps which take up space (at least, my experiences have been that many of these tools install way too much -- probably because I don't use either and all the "default libs" aren't on my system). On my previous machine I had lots of issues with this, so as a rule I avoid these things unless absolutely necessary. I know others who are of a similar opinion. Fortunately I realized that it was just a shell script, and installed it directly :)

satbyy 11y ago

> The short reason is that NPM is the most straightforward way to get a script installed as a global binary in a cross-platform manner Really ? All Unix-like systems (incl OS X) can do this: /usr/bin/install myscript.sh /usr/local/bin PS: Oh, just realized that there is npm uninstall as well, but not /usr/bin/uninstall (though it's just rm -f anyway)

goldbrick 11y ago
`install` isn't package management, or anything close to that.

semi-extrinsic 11y ago

Wouldn't it be easier for the end user if you used pip/PyPi? Essentially all Linux distros include Python, but there are very few that ship with Node.js installed by default.

LyndsySimon 11y ago
I can only speak for myself, but my systems all prohibit installation of packages into the system Python namespace by default.
- tomjakubowski 11y ago
  Yeah, I try to avoid "sudo pip install" for CLI utilities if I can (and discourage its use to others). I put ~/.local/bin on my PATH (nonstandard XDG -like convention) and use "pip install --user" instead. I've seen too many Python environments hosed by folks who aren't Python experts to keep suggesting that "sudo pip install <CLI tool>" is a thing most users should be doing.
  - LyndsySimon 11y ago
    I use ~/.bin/ for what sounds like the same purpose. I'm not sure I'd call that a convention - it's just what made sense to me - but it does ease issues requiring that userspace executables be on my $PATH.
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  So you need to be root to write to /usr/local/bin/. How does NPM magically solve this? (pip has the `--user` flag to install for just the current user, as tom points out.)
  - LyndsySimon 11y ago
    It doesn't solve it, and I don't think I claimed it did - I simply inferred that I don't think installing it into the system (or user) Python is a good idea either.

stevemao 11y ago

I see a lot of projects that's written in other languages on npm, especially bash. Substack even published c code to npm. I think it makes the script more accessible especially for nodejs users. I don't mind publishing it to other package mangers.

txutxu 11y ago
Please do not confuse 'more accessible specially for', with 'less accessible and exclusively for' nodejs users.

viraptor 11y ago

Or use FPM (https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm/wiki https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm/wiki) and abstract the whole packaging idea. linux and mac packages supported.

ossreality 11y ago

No. Nope. Never. Best of luck! You're absolutely losing users by putting `npm` on the page. Personally, I laugh when I see software packaged this way, and it's even more absurd after hearing your supposed rationalization. Not happening. I'm far from alone.

gkya 11y ago

I had no reasons to use this package, but now I have one to not use it. I only wanted to see what it was because the name suggested something fun. Why whould someone who can't add $HOME/bin to $PATH be using git?

argonaut 11y ago
I realize your question is rhetorical, but there are tons of people. Anyone new to programming, in a CS course that uses git, for example, would be familiar with basic git but many would be unfamiliar with the path (or on Windows).
- gkya 11y ago
  I concur, but they need not stay unfamiliar with it. The concept is easy: When you type the name of a program and hit enter, I look it up in a list of directories to see the first one that contains a file with that name. That list is $PATH. Any programmer will have to deal with search paths and stuff at some point in their life, and probably very early on, when they'll want to run their own scripts.
  - lowboy 11y ago
    I agree that most programmers will run into $PATH at some point, but why force an order on them? Maybe they just want to get started using things like fancy diffs provided through package managers like npm.
crottypeter 11y ago
git is a content tracker. People who don't need to edit PATH might still need to track content.
- gkya 11y ago
  Git is a revision control system. Nodejs is a programming language. NPM is a tool to fetch libraries for node programs. Thus NPM and Git are software development tools. A software developer or a power user are supposed to know what $PATH or %PATH is.

hobarrera 11y ago

Last I tried, npm didn't even work on IPv6, even if there's some transition mechanism in place (eg: NAT64). It's really pretty awful as a distribution mechanism. Why not a simple Makefile?