Deno: feature-request: Expose the same API in node.js

[WillAvudim]

Would it be possible to get access to exactly the same API in Node.js?

I found the API surface overall to be exquisitely neatly designed, and I like it a lot. I'd like to be able to seamlessly switch between Deno and Node.js without memorizing strikingly different OS/file APIs.

[GrosSacASac]

That is a non goal

from https://deno.land/manual.html#introduction

Non-goals

Not explicitly compatible with Node.

[zekth]

Some polyfills are available as third-party modules but it will not be implementend in deno.

[ry]

As @zekth suggests, we could have an API in deno_std that acts as a polyfill. Something like this:

import { readFileSync } from "https://deno.land/std/node/fs"

[zekth]

Having it in deno_std is not good for me. I'd better create an official polyfill repo, like deno_polyfills

[WillAvudim]

Thank you for not killing this proposal outright on the spot :-)

Node.js API surface is enormous with lots of legacy pre-async-await artifacts. Bringing it into Deno is indeed undesirable. If we could bring Deno API to Node.js, one way or another, it would make way to write libraries that support both Deno and Node.js.

[zekth]

The only thing we need to focus on is the CI checking. We have to make test between deno and node to have the same output. Also this may need a generic test runner. That's my concern about adding it to deno_std. Add special steps just for polyfills may slow down the ci.

Or maybe we can gather development with this issue: https://github.com/denoland/deno_std/issues/333

[kevinkassimo]

I agree that we might want to dedicate another repo instead of deno_std for the node-compat modules, since we are likely to need two different kind of issue trackers

[ry]

@kevinkassimo I'm not opposed to doing it in a separate repo - but why do they need to different kind of issue trackers?

[kevinkassimo]

@ry Since I believe most of the issues will be about incompatibilities/different output with Node API instead of proposing new functionalities

[ry]

@kevinkassimo Ok sure. Does anyone want to start a repo outside of denoland for this? We can point people to it in the manual as the semi-official binding layer. I feel like things might move faster if I'm not in the loop. If it works out and is useful we can consider moving it into deno_std later.

[zekth]

@kevinkassimo Creating https://github.com/denolib/node so ?

[kevinkassimo]

@zekth Yeah I think this works

[kevinkassimo]

@zekth @ry Inited project in https://github.com/denolib/node

[MarkTiedemann]

There's also https://www.npmjs.com/package/deno which tries to bring the Deno API to Node (see: https://github.com/denoland/deno_install/issues/6).

[realJoshByrnes]

Following... I might be able to assist with this.

[bartlomieju]

Closing in favor of #2644