[Pkg-javascript-devel] libjs-* vs. libnode-*

Jérémy Lal jerry at edagames.com
Fri Oct 14 00:02:33 UTC 2011


On 14/10/2011 01:42, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> On 11-10-14 at 12:02am, Jérémy Lal wrote:
>> On 13/10/2011 23:48, David Paleino wrote:
>>> On Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:45:34 +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I just noticed that libnode-backbone-dirty depends on a mixture of 
>>>> libjs-* and libnode-* packages.  That is correct according to 
>>>> Debian Policy, but looks ugly.
>>>>
>>>> We discussed it briefly recently, where Jérémy felt that it was 
>>>> unusual for same package to support both libjs-* and libnode-* so 
>>>> less of an issue.
>>>>
>>>> Now that David has added a bunch additional packages there is 
>>>> perhaps material for looking at this issue again?
>>>
>>> Given I hadn't found any policy about this, I went "by heart" about 
>>> package naming.
>>> I called libnode-* those libraries I thought were node-specific, and 
>>> libjs-* those which could be of general usage (example: 
>>> libjs-backbone).
>>>
>>> Still, I'm not satisfied by the approach I'm taking, and would 
>>> prefer a more objective guideline :)
>>
>> I think libjs-* should be reserved for "browser libs" uses.
> 
>> In some cases, the choice is obvious, since the lib cannot run, or has 
>> no use, inside a browser. Then it should be named libnode-*.
>> There are cases where it can run on both : i'm for building two 
>> binaries out of one source.
>> Symlinks to the libjs-* from libnode-* may not be a good idea. It 
>> seems simpler to just build two independent packages.
> 
> I agree that it generally makes sense to package separately:
> 
> For browsers it makes sense to aggresively merge and compress sources 
> using uglifyjs (or yui-compressor), as bandwidth is a major factor and 
> compressors test for _browser_ compatibility.
> 
> For Node it makes sense to install code snippets unmerged and 
> uncompressed, allowing Node to deal with it directly - perhaps improving 
> performance by tracking timestamps or location of each snippets.
> 
> Might be that some package really is identical for both browser and Node 
> consumption - but that is most likely the exception, not the rule.
> 
> I do recall now that something along that reasoning was raised by Jérémy 
> in the past - and that I didn't understand it.  Now I do.  So credits to 
> Jérémy for above!
> 
> 
> Someone volunteer to create a wiki page to document this?

Oh yes. I'll help, but don't let me do this !
 
> I suggest that we call it "Debian Javascript Policy" because browser and 
> Node code are both subsets of Javascript.  But again I recall Jérémy 
> arguing differently in the past.  Care to try elaborate again, Jérémy?

You could say browser and node code are just using different core environments, while
being both javascript scripts.
I guess that was it.

Jérémy.



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