Do you use the emsdk version of node?

[Sam Clegg]

;tldr; Please respond if you use the emsdk version of node?

The current behaviour of emsdk is to put its version of node at the front of the $PATH when the sdk is installed.  Some folks have found this confusing/annoying.  For background on this see:

https://github.com/emscripten-core/emscripten/issues/4848

and:

https://github.com/emscripten-core/emsdk/pull/714

Emscripten itself doesn't uses node from the PATH (it always uses the config file) so it not needed internally, but the fear is that some users (who don't otherwise have node installed on their system) have come to depend on the emsdk version of node for running emscripten output. e.g. running tests.

I'd like to know who many folks are actually using the emsdk version of node.  For example, do you run tests using this version node?    If we didn't add it to your PATH by default would that be annoying/confusing for you?

cheers,

sam

[Brion Vibber]

On Sat, Sep 17, 2022 at 11:03 AM 'Sam Clegg' via emscripten-discuss <emscripte...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I'd like to know who many folks are actually using the emsdk version of node.  For example, do you run tests using this version node?    If we didn't add it to your PATH by default would that be annoying/confusing for you?

I guess I "use" it because when I run "npm" and "node" in my build process that's what gets run. But I would absolutely never choose it, and I would strongly prefer not to have a bundled node at all.

-- brion

[Floh]

> ...and I would strongly prefer not to have a bundled node at all.

Hmm, I have the opposite opinion tbh, Node *should* be bundled, but shouldn't be added to the path (so that the bundled version doesn't collide with any globally installed version), and the Emscripten SDK shouldn't accidentially call any globally installed node version (only the bundled one).

I'd prefer this because at work I'm seeing that projects often depend on older node/npm versions (at least there's nvm to easily switch between versions), but having Emscripten depend on a globally installed node version would only add to the confusion (and probably swamp the Emscripten team with bugs which would actually be node compatibility issues). Same with python2 vs python3.

[Brion Vibber]

On Sun, Sep 18, 2022 at 8:48 AM Floh <flo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ...and I would strongly prefer not to have a bundled node at all.

Hmm, I have the opposite opinion tbh, Node *should* be bundled, but shouldn't be added to the path (so that the bundled version doesn't collide with any globally installed version), and the Emscripten SDK shouldn't accidentially call any globally installed node version (only the bundled one).

I'd prefer this because at work I'm seeing that projects often depend on older node/npm versions (at least there's nvm to easily switch between versions), but having Emscripten depend on a globally installed node version would only add to the confusion (and probably swamp the Emscripten team with bugs which would actually be node compatibility issues). Same with python2 vs python3.

*nod* that's sensible enough -- node has felt stabler than python during the 2/3 switch, but node isn't free of back-compat problems too. :)

I'd be fine with bundling it for internal usage, as long as it's out of the PATH.

-- brion

[Shlomi Fish]

hi all,

see https://github.com/shlomif/emsdk/tree/skip-npm .

--

Shlomi Fish https://www.shlomifish.org/
Best Introductory Programming Language - https://shlom.in/intro-lang

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— https://www.shlomifish.org/humour/Summerschool-at-the-NSA/

Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - https://shlom.in/reply .

[Sam Clegg]

It sounds like you both agree with folks on the issue that bundling node (and internally using the bundled node) is find/good but adding it to the PATH is not desirable.

I think we have come up with a proposed solution where `./emsdk_env.sh` will, by default, only install emcc into the path.  

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