[ovirt-devel] Tools for developing and building oVirt.js project

Thu Aug 28 19:00:10 UTC 2014

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sandro Bonazzola" <sbonazzo at redhat.com>
> To: "Tomas Jelinek" <tjelinek at redhat.com>, "Mooli Tayer" <mtayer at redhat.com>
> Cc: devel at ovirt.org
> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 12:03:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [ovirt-devel] Tools for developing and building oVirt.js project
> 
> Il 26/08/2014 09:38, Tomas Jelinek ha scritto:
> > 
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Mooli Tayer" <mtayer at redhat.com>
> >> To: "Greg Sheremeta" <gshereme at redhat.com>
> >> Cc: devel at ovirt.org
> >> Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 9:17:20 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [ovirt-devel] Tools for developing and building oVirt.js
> >> project
> >>
> >> Are we talking about using node as a development/test/packaging(minify etc
> >> )
> >> tool or having a runtime backend (site) on top of node?
> > 
> > It is only devel environment (e.g. build dependency), not runtime.
> 
> 
> If it's build dependency it's not just devel environment.

Right, I messed up my comment above, sorry.

Node.js can be (and typically is) used as both devel & build dependency
for JavaScript projects.

> We must ensure that all required build dependencies are available and
> properly packaged for all supported distributions.

Yes, fully agreed.

Fedora already has some packages we could use, for example:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=15154
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=15356

However, there's one complication (as Greg mentioned before): npm (Node
package manager) resolves Node-specific packages (esentially JavaScript
artifacts) via HTTP access, so we'd need some infra to serve these, and
for each such JS module:
- either use existing package for that JS module, if one exists
- or maintain package for that JS module on our own [*]

[*] I understand that this is not what we want to do in general

In other words, there would have to be some infra to support builds for
JavaScript/Node.js projects, similar to existing infra to support builds
for Java/Maven projects:
- package for Node.js + npm
- package for each JS module (likely problematic)
- tool (existing Artifactory that serves Maven artifacts?) to serve
  JS modules via HTTP for npm to consume (maybe problematic)

In any case, we can proceed with developing oVirt.js without requiring
Node.js as a build dependency. I see two possible solutions here:

1, avoid using build tools like Traceur (ES6 -> ES5 transpiler)
   and UglifyJS (code compressor/obfuscator), just concatenate
   JS source files into resulting JS target file (either via
   command in Makefile or via some Maven plugin)

   PROS: no special build requirements
   CONS: can't use tools like Traceur

2, use build tools like Traceur and UglifyJS, commit resulting
   JS target file into source tree, maybe with git commit hook
   for this

   PROS: can use tools like Traceur
   CONS: storing target JS file in source tree

3, (?)

What do you think?

Note that this might work for small projects in short term.

If we agree that JavaScript is the common base technology for
oVirt frontend, not having well-established build environment
(such as Node.js) will make it very hard to develop and maintain
bigger JavaScript projects in the long term.

> 
> 
> > 
> > I'd just like to point out that one thing is the development of the
> > ovirt.js itself
> > which is not going to be a big project and I can imagine also using less
> > ideal (slower) tools for it's development.
> > 
> > A completely different story will be when (if) we decide to use ovirt.js to
> > develop some parts of the webadmin/userportal
> > in javascript instead of GWT (or even rewrite the whole FE to JS) which
> > will be a big project (set of projects).
> > 
> > If we want to be effective in that effort, we will need good tools.
> > 
> >>
> >> From my perspective I can't stress enough how important is the separation
> >> of ovirt UI part from the backend. I agree to everything Vojtech said
> >> about
> >> developing to the browser with java.
> >>
> >> Mooli.
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>> From: "Vojtech Szocs" <vszocs at redhat.com>
> >>>> To: devel at ovirt.org
> >>>> Sent: Monday, August 25, 2014 11:13:38 AM
> >>>> Subject: [ovirt-devel] Tools for developing and building oVirt.js
> >>>> project
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi guys,
> >>>>
> >>>> last week, we had "oVirt.js PoC" session and I mentioned the possibility
> >>>> of using Node.js and related tools like npm to develop & build oVirt.js
> >>>> project.
> >>>>
> >>>> I'd like to hear your opinion - what do you think about using Node.js in
> >>>> context of developing & building JavaScript projects? (oVirt.js etc.)
> >>>>
> >>>> Obviously, I'm strongly biased towards Node.js because of its popularity
> >>>> and therefore availability of various tools (npm packages) for
> >>>> JavaScript,
> >>>> for example: grunt (task runner), jslint/hint (code analyzer), uglifyjs
> >>>> (minify/compress), karma (both one-time & continuous test runner),
> >>>> traceur
> >>>> (es6 -> es5 compiler), etc.
> >>>>
> >>>> My understanding is that any special-purpose JavaScript development tool
> >>>> is typically implemented as module for Node.js (due to its popularity),
> >>>> so I think it makes sense to use Node.js as a platform for JavaScript
> >>>> development.
> >>>>
> >>>> There are also Java-based projects for JavaScript (post)processing like
> >>>> wro4j, however these tend to be implemented by invoking JS tools (like
> >>>> uglifyjs) from Java context via Rhino (JS engine for Java), for example:
> >>>>
> >>>>   https://code.google.com/p/wro4j/source/browse/wro4j-extensions/src/main/java/ro/isdc/wro/extensions/processor/support/uglify/UglifyJs.java
> >>>>
> >>>> (To me, developing JavaScript project with Java-centric tooling sounds
> >>>> quite strange in general.)
> >>>>
> >>>> There's also webjars repository for hosting popular web resources for
> >>>> use in Java applications (i.e. Maven artifact for uglifyjs etc.), but
> >>>> this is just for easier dependency management from Java perspective
> >>>> (JAR file as a distribution format for web resources):
> >>>>
> >>>>   http://www.webjars.org/
> >>>>
> >>>> Overall, I'm in favor of using Node.js to manage all tasks related to
> >>>> JavaScript development and build process. If you have any objections
> >>>> or suggestions, I'd like to hear them!
> >>>>
> >>>> (I understand that Node.js essentially means new dependency with all
> >>>> implications, but in this case, I think it's worth it. But this is
> >>>> just me, so please share your opinions.)
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>> Vojtech
> >>>
> >>> I think most developers would agree that node.js is the tool of choice
> >>> for
> >>> JavaScript development.
> >>>
> >>> The thing we must carefully consider is that node.js uses its own package
> >>> manager (npm -- much like maven), and unlike maven, tooling does not yet
> >>> exist to deal with npm packages in an rpm environment.
> >>>
> >>> This isn't on the same level as adding a logging library or a collections
> >>> library or something. I'd argue that dependencies don't get any heavier
> >>> than this one. That is worrisome to me.
> >>>
> >>> Run 'yum list available |grep nodejs' on your machine to see which
> >>> node.js
> >>> packages are available. Note that I don't see karma or uglify available
> >>> in
> >>> either Fedora or Red Hat SCL (Software Collections) [1].
> >>>
> >>> [1]
> >>> https://sochotni.fedorapeople.org/nodejs010-RHSCL-1-RHEL-6/Server/x86_64/os/Packages/
> >>>
> >>> Greg
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Devel mailing list
> >>> Devel at ovirt.org
> >>> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Devel mailing list
> >> Devel at ovirt.org
> >> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Devel mailing list
> > Devel at ovirt.org
> > http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> > 
> 
> 
> --
> Sandro Bonazzola
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