[Nix-dev] Simplify node packages?

[Colin Putney]

On Sun, Apr 23, 2017 at 6:10 AM, Benno Fünfstück <
benno.fuenfstueck at gmail.com> wrote:


> * Alternatively, `yarn` claims to be more deterministic. Can we use `yarn`
> to build all NPM packages? Or are there NPM packages that are incompatible?
>

I think this is the best way forward. Yarn is *much* better than npm and is
being enthusiastically adopted by the node community. Whatever
compatibility issues that currently exist with yarn will soon be resolved.
(Nix users have basically no influence, but package maintainers can't
afford to ignore yarn users.)

Node2nix focusses on replicating the typical npm workflow so that "normal"
node developers experience minimal disruption. I think that's a worthy
goal, but it should be balanced against the need to fully exploit the
benefits of nix. For example, it seems to be impossible to override an npm
derivation to add a native dependency. That to, to me, is one of key
features of nix, but at the moment we can't use it. As yarn fixes more and
more of the more pedestrian issue with npm, integration with the nix
ecosystem and will become the only real advantage to using nix with node.

-Colin
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