Modules: vscode has no plans to address esm modules in the foreseeable future

[bmacnaughton]

this seems a consideration in unflagging --experimental-modules.

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/77871

this may be well known and being addressed but i just ran into it.

my particular configuration:

My system:
node: '12.11.1'
v8: '7.7.299.11-node.12'

vscode:
Version: 1.39.2
Commit: 6ab598523be7a800d7f3eb4d92d7ab9a66069390
Date: 2019-10-15T15:33:40.634Z
Electron: 4.2.10
Chrome: 69.0.3497.128
Node.js: 12.11.1
V8: 6.9.427.31-electron.0
OS: Linux x64 4.15.0-66-generic

[GeoffreyBooth]

How is this an issue? Once the flag is no longer required won't this no longer be a problem?

[devsnek]

I think they're saying vscode will fail to start once we remove the flag. However, vscode will have presumably tested and fixed this by the time they ship a version of vscode with that version of node.

[jkrems]

I think this issue goes beyond the modules flag. Reading the issue title I thought it was about ES modules support in code. But this just seems to be an electron bug (?) where it looks at NODE_OPTIONS set in the user profile which i suspect is almost never what a user expects.

[Jamesernator]

But this just seems to be
an electron bug (?) where it looks at NODE_OPTIONS set in the user profile
which i suspect is almost never what a user expects.

A quick test of shoving NODE_OPTIONS="--experimental-modules" into .zshrc does indeed break VSCode (it just fails to open) if opened from the same shell.

This breaks VSCode today irrespective of unflagging, so I don't think there's really anything to do here other than advise people not to set NODE_OPTIONS in their shells (or auto loaded configs) if they're using Electron apps.

[bmacnaughton]

The issue I was trying to float (sorry I wasn't more clear) is that vscode doesn't handle ESM modules being enabled. That's not an issue now because it requires the user to turn them on via NODE_OPTIONS but, if unflagged, vscode will not run.

I set NODE_OPTIONS at the bash command prompt, not in the vscode user options, similar to what @Jamesernator did with zsh.

I can file an issue with vscode that modules are likely to be unflagged and that they may want to fix the issue. Does that make sense?

[GeoffreyBooth]

If Code is an Electron app, doesn't that mean it bundles its own Node runtime? So they can upgrade that whenever they resolve this bug.

[bmacnaughton]

yes, it's an electron app. good point - they won't see the --experimental-modules flag if that becomes the default; they're running their own node runtime; no problem.

thanks.