./pkgs/development/node-packages/generate.sh never ends

[yajo]

Describe the bug

Well, it actually ends at some point, but after an extreme amount of hours.

Now, #221164 has conflicts and I just can't find the time to update the PR (not because I don't have time, but because the script always takes longer than my work schedule).

Steps To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Add "@prettier/plugin-xml" to node-packages.json
2. Run ./pkgs/development/node-packages/generate.sh

Expected behavior

That file only has about 400 packages. It shouldn't take so many hours to complete!

Screenshots

If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Additional context

Add any other context about the problem here.

Notify maintainers

Metadata

Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the result.

[user@system:~]$ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
this path will be fetched (0.00 MiB download, 0.00 MiB unpacked):
  /nix/store/8pfc9wfmn73bfz4ha0wmxvggk2wy9mpk-nix-info
copying path '/nix/store/8pfc9wfmn73bfz4ha0wmxvggk2wy9mpk-nix-info' from 'ssh://eu.nixbuild.net'...
 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 6.2.15-300.fc38.x86_64, Fedora Linux, 38.20230515.0 (Silverblue), nobuild`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.13.3`
 - channels(yajo): `"nixpkgs"`
 - nixpkgs: `/var/home/yajo/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs`

[figsoda]

cc @NixOS/node

[winterqt]

We're not really too interested in solving this at the moment, moreso reducing the size of the set.

Feel free to try to fix it in node2nix, though! Would be a great improvement.

[lilyinstarlight]

To clarify, new packages should be using buildNpmPackage (or similar) instead of using the older node2nix-based method, if those packages are supported by buildNpmPackage (e.g. see #229475)

We don't really have enough bandwidth ourselves to maintain node2nix and it has a lot of rather problematic issues (the massive size of the nodePackages set, which must fetch the metadata and files of ~10k packages, included -- but also it does a lot of things wrong and is based on a rather old model of how npm works)

[NotAShelf]

Speaking of npm, would there be any chance we see the pnpm toolkit introduced to nix build procedure, perhaps somethinig like buildPnpmPackage? I vaguely recall seeing an issue/discussion on it, but couldn't find it with a quick search.

[lilyinstarlight]

Speaking of npm, would there be any chance we see the pnpm toolkit introduced to nix build procedure, perhaps somethinig like buildPnpmPackage? I vaguely recall seeing an issue/discussion on it, but couldn't find it with a quick search.

It's on the roadmap, but not a current focus (the npm tooling is still busted enough as-is...)

We're gonna start tracking that in #231513

[yajo]

I guess this is a duplicate of #229475 then. Thanks everyone, I'll follow your suggestions 😊

I guess the very immediate action to take would be to change the docs, because I actually came to this problem following https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/#id-1.5.8.21.6.10

[lilyinstarlight]

I guess the very immediate action to take would be to change the docs, because I actually came to this problem following

Yeah the docs do need updating there for sure. I guess I should probably try to sneak a docs update in soon so it makes it into the stable release