[aerogear-dev] AeroGear UnifiedPush server build feedback

[Bruno Oliveira]

Ahoy, answers inline.

On 2014-08-06, Lukáš Fryč wrote:
> Hey Bruno,
>
> awesome job with the docker image!
> Could we mention that in the README?

Sure thing, glad you enjoyed.

>
>
> I've created this issue to track improvements in the build itself:
> https://issues.jboss.org/browse/AGPUSH-881

Thanks a lot.

>
> Responds inline:
>
> On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 9:56 PM, Bruno Oliveira <bruno at abstractj.org> wrote:
>
> > Good morning peeps,
> >
> > I would like to open this thread to discuss some ideas about how to
> > improve the current build on Push server. Lukas have been doing a
> > stellar job improving it and I think we can help.
> >
> > Yesterday I spent some time trying to build a developer environment for
> > UPS — was a good exercise to realize how people feel trying to contribute.
> > The goal was to build the environment from scratch.
> >
> > Here comes some feedback (keep in mind that I'm not that good on Node.js)
> >
> > - Build our dependencies takes a considerable time. For fair
> >   reasons, we are running mvn install, npm install and bo
> > http://blog.nodejs.org/2012/02/27/managing-node-js-dependencies-with-shrinkwrap/wer
> > install
> >   for the first time. Maybe we can reduce one step?
> >
>
> We cannot avoid Maven and if we want really fresh compiled-from-sources
> approach (as opposed to store-compiled-to-git what we had before), we need
> go with both, Bower and NPM.
>
> Storing NPM deps in /node_modules is platform-dependent
> <http://blog.nodejs.org/2012/02/27/managing-node-js-dependencies-with-shrinkwrap/>

Bummer, got it. That makes sense.
> .
>
> We could store there Bower dependencies though. We can use exportsOverride
> <https://github.com/liveoak-io/liveoak/blob/master/console/src/main/resources/bower.json#L28>
> section to extract just those files from our dependencies that we actually
> require in the project. Once updated, we can save them.
>
> But once you have NPM installed correctly, it's just a small step to
> running Bower.

If is just a small step let's leave it as is.
>
>
> >
> > - Java developers don't have their environment ready for Node — it can
> >   be a blocker. For example, was necessary to install gcc, libpng and
> >   libpng-devel. I already saw team members struggling with it, like me.
> >
>
> This is a blocker, I wasn't even aware of it - we may want to choose other
> plugins that don't require those dependencies or maybe inspect what grunt
> plugins we are even using. Do we even need some of those Grunt plugins like
> PNG minification (imagemin)?

Maybe we can improve here! Remove imagemin would be a win, once it
requires libpng and libpng-devel. (not sure about the impact of removing
it)

>
>
> >
> > - Maybe we should run -Pdev by default and run the complete build only
> >   for CI.
> >
>
> Yes, we have to come with sensible defaults. We store our NPM/Bower caches
> inside the project structure and we clean them with each clean. This is
> anti-pattern - in Java analogy - it's cleaning .m2/repository for each
> build - we should clean them just when we explicitly want to. -Pdev would
> stay here, but it would just remove /node_modules and /bower_components
>
> a) should add one more profile to clean even caches, e.g. -Pforce-clean
> b) or do not clean it at all and document that if one needs completely
> fresh sources, he should clean manually by "git clean -f -x -d" and "npm
> cache clean"

To me the idea of having a profile to clean everything if they want to,
is a good idea. And what would be the default? -Pdev?

>
>
> >
> > - Maybe we can minify some JS dependencies and don't build
> >   everything altogether?
> >
> > I built an image[1][2], because developers willing to just use UPS with the
> > latest bits might struggle to configure their environment and maybe it
> > can be helpful.
> >
> > The image is not perfect and soon will be moved to jboss/dockerfiles.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > [1] -
> > https://github.com/abstractj/docker/tree/master/aerogear-unifiedpush-dev
> > [2] - https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/abstractj/unifiedpush-dev/
> > --
> >
>
> Also, someone suggested to use wro4j - as long as it is vital alternative
> for the build time, wro4j is really not handy for development, you won't
> get as quick turnaround as with Grunt.

+1 on keep Grunt

>
> Some plugins we use doesn't even have to be available in wro4j, e.g.
> ngtemplates, ngmin.
>
>
>
> Making the build straight-forward is an ongoing, continuous process and we
> have still lot to investigate here. It can't definitely be finished in 1.0
> time.

+1 my friend, deal with the build and multiple technologies is not that
easy. We can alwasy improve, thanks for looking at it.

>
> Bear in mind that Node/NPM is very young technology and it will take some
> time to get it to the state where Maven is (if ever).
>
> In the meantime, I encourage you to use this awesome docker image Bruno
> created!

> _______________________________________________
> aerogear-dev mailing list
> aerogear-dev at lists.jboss.org
> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev


--

abstractj
PGP: 0x84DC9914