Node/npm-based ports in 2021 - Thoughts?

From: Guangyuan Yang <ygy_at_freebsd.org>
Date: Thu, 27 May 2021 09:03:18 UTC
Hi folks,

I came across a PR [1] for adding a new port www/code-server [2], a
node/npm-based application. Over the years I have been avoiding
npm-based ports since I believe it was not really supported and also
discouraged [3], however, I think this particular application (along
with an increasing number of system utilities) is valuable and is
worth putting in the ports tree.

I guess my wondering is:

- For this particular port, is there a "more correct" way of doing
this? I commented on the PR [1] but found that my domain knowledge is
quite limited.
- Is there (or will there be) any development on supporting
nodejs/npm-based applications?

Thanks!

+cc yuri@ (for misc/netron, [4]), swills@ since I recalled that you
worked on some ports using npm before, sorry for the spam in advance
:)

[1]: https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=256144
[2]: https://github.com/cdr/code-server
[3]: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/node-js-based-ports-how-do-you-handle-the-npm-install.56659/
[4]: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports/blob/main/misc/netron/Makefile

-- 
Guangyuan Yang
ygy@FreeBSD.org