Integrating npm front-end with Kallithea

[Mads Kiilerich]

On 11/08/2017 01:44 PM, Andrew Shadura wrote:
> On 8 November 2017 at 12:37, Mads Kiilerich <mads at kiilerich.com> wrote:
>> On 11/08/2017 08:53 AM, Andrew Shadura wrote:
>>> Why can't use use any of the Python implementations of Less? Or use
>>> either JS one or Python one depending on what's available?
>>
>> I guess we could. I don't have an opinion on that. Those that do the work
>> get to decide. And I do see the value of sticking to the most commonly used
>> tool chain.
> Well, I did submit a proof of concept using lesscpy two years ago, and
> that went nowhere.

Can you find a reference to it so we can re-evaluate?

>> Less is one thing - then comes javascript and minifier ... and the need to
>> be able to use custom variables when building Bootstrap.
> Does any of this need npm?

The most obvious and simple way to do it do use npm. But given enough 
effort, everything can of course be done differently.

>> I don't think less is the problem. It comes "for free" with the solution to
>> some of the bigger problems:
>>
>> * We "need" bits and pieces from npm packages. Primarily Bootstrap, but also
>> all the other front end libraries that are so hard to vendor in a GPL
>> compatible way.
> Which bits?

jQuery, datatables, the whole list of front-end code we more or less 
have vendored now.

>> * We thus need npm to download the packages.
>>
>> * We need the right build tools for these packages ... and they also come
>> from npm by default (and nothing else is supported).
> I don't understand what's so difficult about Lessing a bunch of files
> and amalgamating them afterwards so that we absolutely have to use the
> upstream's build system.
>
What is your concern and over-all goal? That we only use Python tools 
and only have dependencies from pypi, and thus either vendor all 
external dependencies or find them as source packages on pypi so we can 
build it with python tooling at install time?

I would like that, but I don't think it is feasible. It would have too 
much overhead and be too non-standard.

/Mads