Re: [Pkg-javascript-devel] many tiny tiny node.js packages

[Jérémy Lal <kapouer@melix.org>]

2016-06-05 12:25 GMT+02:00 Jonathan Ulrich Horn <debian@autoit4you.de>:

Hey,

On 06/05/2016 10:13 AM, Holger Levsen wrote:
> I'm rather wondering
> how to deal with an ecosystem where it seems to be normal to release
> tiny tiny packages…
I ask myself more and more if it does make sense to have those tiny
packages in debian.

> I've no idea what to do here
Well, one option would be to make use of the multiple upstream tarballs
feature of uscan and dpkg. The question with this would be, how do you
decide which node.js/npm packages would fit in one bundle and how would
you depend on them correctly?

I'v also bcc'ed this mail to ML of the _javascript_ packaging team so they
are aware of this discussion and can chime in with their opinions.

Hi,

a side effect of this situation is discouraging the packaging of software using

node.js modules, so if any one comes up with a mitigated solution, it should 

account for that aspect too.

IMO a good solution is, when packaging software S for debian, to

- package separately highly popular and meaningful modules

- package separately modules that have licenses that might be difficult to maintain

- package separately c++ addons, so they can be rebuilt when nodejs abi changes

- bundle what's left in package S. We need a tool to help doing that.

Jérémy.