Aminamos

Notes by aminamos

• topics
  • what is a cli
  • what are dependencies, why avoid them
  • what helps us write cli apps
  • new upcoming nodejs features
• CLIs use flags/options
• why build with node?
  • usually a language your team is already familiar with
  • JSON data operations, network requests are pretty well supported
  • node has a package ecosystem (useful when needed, still avoid when possible)
• dependencies
  • code that your program needs to run
  • all users of your app will need to install dependencies
  • smaller apps, like CLIs, not having an install or build step makes setup, contributing, and distribution easier
• new node syntax
  • import instead of require
  • ESM instead of CJS
• argument parsing
  • this process is surprisingly complicated
  • https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/process.html#processargv
  • third party library like yargs or commander, in the past
  • parseArgs is ~the future~ as of node 18.3 (potentially backported to node 16)
    • polyfill proposal for util.parseArgs() - https://www.npmjs.com/package/@pkgjs/parseargs
    • doesn't support all previous functionality, but useful error messages
    • https://nodejs.org/api/util.html#utilparseargsconfig
• fetch
  • before fetch, had to do a lot of pre-work to setup, run, and handle http requests
  • with fetch you can just await fetch() and return the body/errors
  • git blast is real https://github.com/iansu/git-blast
• test runner
  • https://nodejs.org/api/test.html#test-runner
• recursive file system operations
  • https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fspromisesmkdirpath-options
  • https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fspromisesrmpath-options
  • recursive copy
• wild speculation
  • self contained executibles
  • glob
  • typescript node index.ts
• what's next, ways to contribute
  • join node tooling group https://github.com/nodejs/tooling