Meanjs modules (discussion)

[vaucouleur]

It's a discussion entry. I could have missed it, but to the best of my knowledge, this was not addressed explicitly elsewhere, or at least not recently.

Like many, I think that it is a good thing to keep meanjs relatively small, and focused on infrastructure aspects ("framework aspects", so to say). I'm very happy with the existing framework (with the exception of the permissions system: IMHO, roles/views associations are not enough for real-life large SPA applications, but it's another debate).

So, a small kernel is good, and it seems to be the consensus. On the other hand, there is also a need to avoid duplicated efforts with respect to commonly needed "extra-functionalities". Hence, modules. Modules are good: they can be external to the core project, they can compete with each other (in a healthy way), etc.

(Related) Questions:

• Why is there so few meanjs modules ?
• What can be done to address this ?
• Is it due to the project (files/directories) layout ?
• Would adopting another module/component system help ?
• Any modules out-there that are simply missing from the documentation page http://meanjs.org/modules.html ?

[lirantal]

Hi @vaucouleur,

I appreciate the discussion, thanks for jumping in.

The reason behind the modules system being so "light" is that MEAN.js really aims at being a framework, and just that. Adding more modules out of the box is ok, but I believe it misses the point where the project itself aims for minimalist and high quality project and not as-many-as-you-can-get modules offering.

This is one of the biggest differences between MEAN.io and MEAN.js - the former aims to be a platform, extensible, pluggable, core API, etc, much like Wordpress or Drupal in Node.js, while MEAN.js aims to be really, very humbly, just a framework.

[vaucouleur]

@lirantal Thanks for the frank reply.

To me, modules are actually a way to keep the framework minimalist. For example, the "Users Admin" code could be an external module: code that is maintained in an external repository. Hence, it becomes someone else responsibility, and you can focus on the core kernel.

There is already quite a lot of support for modules in meanjs, but to the best of my knowledge, those "modules" cannot be deployed and shared independently.

Using all those technologies (angular services/views, npm/bower, etc.).. using all those best practices (proper code dependencies, clean REST interfaces, etc.).. using all those great things that can enable code reuse... and at the same time not being able to share or pull a "Users Admin" module.. It feels unfortunate.

I don't want to beat a dead horse. I guess you already made up your mind. I also appreciate that you want to limit the scope of this project and I'm grateful for the good work that has been done !