According to this log, we need at least 10.x:

I've a counter example to this: I've node 8.6.0 and it works for me.

Anyway, I think the root of the issue here is that we should not expect people who just want to hack on the web app locally to be able to build the webpack. AFAICT building the webpack is the only reason why we need node, right? If so, that's ~400+ MB of nodes dependencies just for a speed optimization.

@anlambert: would it be possible to make the web app work without webpack, when in developer/debug mode? Or would it be too much a hurdle?

I've a counter example to this: I've node 8.6.0 and it works for me.

...

Anyway, ...

Quite.

Note that what i have gathered here is from a fresh install (directly to a debian 'testing' for unrelated hardware issues).
I had the issues already a while back with another machine (and i got out of it that way).

I think the root of the issue here is that we should not expect people who just want to hack on the web app locally to be able to build the webpack. AFAICT building the webpack is the only reason why we need node, right?

Possibly, yes.

If so, that's ~400+ MB of nodes dependencies just for a speed optimization.

heh ;)

A speed optimization for development purposes but not only that. IIRC, there are some minification and other nice things as well.

@anlambert: would it be possible to make the web app work without webpack, when in developer/debug mode?

Indeed, that would be easier for newcomers to render those dependencies optionals.
At least, at first, then they could so choose to speed things up a bit using the node things.

Cheers,

Honestly, it would be too much of a hurdle. Using node/npm is quite common in web development today
and users who want to hack on the webapp locally should not be suprised about having to issue a 'npm install'
command before being able to run it (this is also explained in the README).

Node is required for developing swh-web for multiple reasons.

It allows to manage and retrieve the needed dependencies (for instance bootstrap, highlightjs, web fonts, ...) through npm or yarn.
This is much more convenient as storing all of them in the git repository, especially as new versions are released.

It is also needed to run webpack in order to process all those dependencies and organize them into logical bundles.
Webpack is not about speed optimization but rather about frontend development tooling and better code
organization.
Webpack also allows to greatly improve frontend development through the features it offered by its core
and its plugins, notably:

• can import all javascript module formats: CommonJS, UMD, ES6
• use of es6 syntax for javascript code (which then gets transpiled to es5 for compatibility with older browsers)
• use of css postprocessors
• liniting of js/css code
• compilation on the fly of sass to css (swh-web overrides some global bootstrap sass variables for instance)
• development server serving compiled assets from memory with automatic reloading of the application in the browser when modifying source files
• minification and dead code elimination in production mode

To summarize, webpack is really usefull for better frontend development so I would prefer to not drop its use.

In T1198#22278, @anlambert wrote:

Honestly, it would be too much of a hurdle. Using node/npm is quite common in web development today
and users who want to hack on the webapp locally should not be suprised about having to issue a 'npm install'
command before being able to run it (this is also explained in the README).

Ok, fair enough. But please let's make a point of depending only on the LTS version of node.

Speaking of which: any idea what's causing @ardumont issue here? Because it does work fine for me with node LTS (from Debian testing).

Not really. I am using node LTS 8.x since a while too and I never encountered such an issue with node-sass.

I've a counter example to this: I've node 8.6.0 and it works for me.
Not really. I am using node LTS 8.x since a while too and I never encountered such an issue with node-sass.

We need something like "need reproduction" or something... ;)

https://forge.softwareheritage.org/tag/unreproducible/

I found out the issue.

I occurred to me during my ride back that it was all about dangling data.
Among other data, I rsync'ed my swh-web's node_modules/ folder (in .gitignore).

So back to square one, uninstalling all things, installing the initial setup:

sudo apt purge nodejs -y
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list
 rm -rf swh-web/node_modules
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nodejs npm
cd swh-web
npm install
make test

And everything is good!

Closing now.

The good news is, we have some stuff to show to people having the same problem \m/

Cheers,