Theia: Document npm4 requirement in the dev doc

[kittaakos]

Actual: both backend and frontend have errors.
Expected: it works.

[hexa00]

I just ran:

git clone https://github.com/theia-ide/theia \
&& cd theia \
&& npm install \
&& cd config/local-dependency-manager \
&& npm install \
&& cd ../../examples/browser \
&& npm run bootstrap \
&& npm run start

And it worked ... could provide more info ? error log etc?

[kittaakos]

See attached log.

[kittaakos]

As I see; npm i is being executed five times. Is that correct or I am simply blind?

[akosyakov]

Looks OK:

1. first to download dependencies for theia
2. second for ldm
3. install ldm on the path of the browser example
4. install theia-core as a local dependency for the browser example
5. install non local dependencies for the browser example

[akosyakov]

which npm version do you use? build does not seem to be executed for you after install

[kittaakos]

I have tried with both v6.10.3 and v8.0.0.

[kittaakos]

And I do __not__ have tsc in the global node modules. If that helps anything at all.

[akosyakov]

scripts are written to work with [email protected], [email protected] has breaking changes, maybes also regarding scripts

[akosyakov]

Could you try with npm4?

[kittaakos]

scripts are written to work with [email protected]

Really? On travis, we have a build with Node6 (and npm3) that passes. So I think it is not true.

[akosyakov]

I've changed travis scripts to use npm4

[kittaakos]

Are you sure? https://travis-ci.org/theia-ide/theia/jobs/241057581#L283

[akosyakov]

yes: https://travis-ci.org/theia-ide/theia/jobs/241057581#L286

[kittaakos]

I see. That makes sense.

[kittaakos]

Why do we have a node6 build then? I just would like to understand its benefit.

[akosyakov]

i don't know, i am talking only about npm versions

[akosyakov]

I think once we discussed it and node 8 is not considered to be stable and it is recommended to use node 6, so we stuck to it.

[kittaakos]

But node6 comes with npm3, right?

[kittaakos]

Build worked fine with node7 and npm4. I am fine with locking ourselves to node7 and npm4 this point but then please clearly state it in the documentation.

[kittaakos]

One more thing on this thread; as I see node7 does not have a long term maintenance support.
See: https://github.com/nodejs/LTS#lts-schedule1

[akosyakov]

I am not sure why you need node7, my local set up is node v6.10.3 and npm v4.6.1

[akosyakov]

I do:

nvm install 6
npm install -g npm@^4

[kittaakos]

I clearly do not want to install npm4 into the global.

[hexa00]

Could we close this once it's documented in developing.md ?

[hexa00]

I'll change the title to reflect that

[kittaakos]

Good point, but I would still consider npm4 as the main problem.

[hexa00]

You mean we should adapt the scripts or change npm version ?

[epatpol]

I added a section on that in Developing.md, but I'll try investigating and see why it doesn't work with node8/npm5.

[akosyakov]

It is not relevant anymore since we use yarn