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Right, I get that. What I don't get is why Node is a requirement for a JS compiler. Is that just to get the runtime? I'd always thought of Node as a server on t

Right, I get that. What I don't get is why Node is a requirement for a JS compiler. Is that just to get the runtime? I'd always thought of Node as a server on top of a V8 runtime. (Thank you for your patience with this backend dev who finds your whole world very confusing.)

bstar77 5y ago
Node is required because that's what is used to compile the JS on the command line, it's a nodejs process. Once that's complete, any web server can serve the newly produced JS/CSS/HTML files. JS is interpreted by the browser, but we compile locally so that the code produced implements workarounds for missing language features. The code produced is typically minified so that the payload sent to the browser is much smaller than it would otherwise be. Node is analogous to Python, Ruby and PHP... they all can run webservices, power desktop apps and compile/build projects.
- throwaway_egbs 5y ago
  Yeah, I get all that too. I think my problem was that I sort of misunderstood what Node is. I've always thought of it as a web server, not a language runtime. So to me it seemed like using Node to run command-line tools was akin to doing python -m http.server my_cool_cli_thing which is, of course, a bananas way to do things. But now that I've dug into it a little more I see that this is a misapprehension that I formed based on Node's original use case as an event-driven web server. Thanks again.
mjgoeke 5y ago
I had a similar jarring experience moving from C# dev to web apps. I knew I wanted to use building blocks available via npm. I went to download npm, and found the way you get npm is via installing node.js Node js and the the package manager are inextricably tied together. Node js provides a local js runtime environment for the e.g. dev time packages to execute. It's also the api for interacting with the filesystem. Somewhere down there, yes, Node js is a web server, but it's kind of 'the' javascript execution environment for building local packages ("plugins"?) against. The whole ecosystem is built up on javascript. If you're running grunt or gulp or webpack, it's all javascript. When you install packages globally they're put in a global folder. There are exceptions (I'm looking at you Cypress) that have native assemblies instead of js, but by and large there it's js, and it's stored locally. There are some pretty simple conventions (e.g. the 'node_modules' folder and the hidden '.bin' folder inside that) When running npm it feels like passing a one-liner javascript command into node's javascript repl/environment. The .bin commands are ambiently available. It makes a lot of sense how it's grown organically... why there haven't been efforts to separate the constituent parts... I don't know. At some point maintaining the 'working thing' with <large degree of> complexity is easier than following a more rigorous, provable set of tools. I think it's a culture thing. Probably the same reason most of the problems are fixed by deleting node_modules and re running `npm i`
- bstar77 5y ago
  NPM was born out Bundler for Ruby. Node doesn't require you to use npm, but they are bundled together now. There are other popular registries like Yarn.
motogpjimbo 5y ago
Node is required for a lot of modern webdev tooling because (a) Node and NPM are usually bundled together and (b) people who write tools for JS development usually like to write the tools in JS too.

bstar77 5y ago

Node is required because that's what is used to compile the JS on the command line, it's a nodejs process. Once that's complete, any web server can serve the newly produced JS/CSS/HTML files. JS is interpreted by the browser, but we compile locally so that the code produced implements workarounds for missing language features. The code produced is typically minified so that the payload sent to the browser is much smaller than it would otherwise be. Node is analogous to Python, Ruby and PHP... they all can run webservices, power desktop apps and compile/build projects.

throwaway_egbs 5y ago
Yeah, I get all that too. I think my problem was that I sort of misunderstood what Node is. I've always thought of it as a web server, not a language runtime. So to me it seemed like using Node to run command-line tools was akin to doing python -m http.server my_cool_cli_thing which is, of course, a bananas way to do things. But now that I've dug into it a little more I see that this is a misapprehension that I formed based on Node's original use case as an event-driven web server. Thanks again.

mjgoeke 5y ago

I had a similar jarring experience moving from C# dev to web apps. I knew I wanted to use building blocks available via npm. I went to download npm, and found the way you get npm is via installing node.js Node js and the the package manager are inextricably tied together. Node js provides a local js runtime environment for the e.g. dev time packages to execute. It's also the api for interacting with the filesystem. Somewhere down there, yes, Node js is a web server, but it's kind of 'the' javascript execution environment for building local packages ("plugins"?) against. The whole ecosystem is built up on javascript. If you're running grunt or gulp or webpack, it's all javascript. When you install packages globally they're put in a global folder. There are exceptions (I'm looking at you Cypress) that have native assemblies instead of js, but by and large there it's js, and it's stored locally. There are some pretty simple conventions (e.g. the 'node_modules' folder and the hidden '.bin' folder inside that) When running npm it feels like passing a one-liner javascript command into node's javascript repl/environment. The .bin commands are ambiently available. It makes a lot of sense how it's grown organically... why there haven't been efforts to separate the constituent parts... I don't know. At some point maintaining the 'working thing' with <large degree of> complexity is easier than following a more rigorous, provable set of tools. I think it's a culture thing. Probably the same reason most of the problems are fixed by deleting node_modules and re running `npm i`

bstar77 5y ago
NPM was born out Bundler for Ruby. Node doesn't require you to use npm, but they are bundled together now. There are other popular registries like Yarn.

motogpjimbo 5y ago

Node is required for a lot of modern webdev tooling because (a) Node and NPM are usually bundled together and (b) people who write tools for JS development usually like to write the tools in JS too.