install npm modules

[craigmulligan]

I see we currently host git submodules for all the nodes in this repo, is there a reason for this?

IMO a cleaner approach would be to npm install them on build?

[nopbyte]

The biggest advantage (for me) is that we can easily develop new features by checking out all the submodules and building locally. For instance, I have to change code from different persons or create branches with security, apply all changes locally, and then do the PRs.

I personally (this is a biased opinion) don't like to publish in npm, for non-technical reasons. One of them being that (last time I checked) they force you to make your actual email address public, unlike github that offers a separate account that is then forwarded to your private email. But this is not the main reason.... the part that I really like, is how the development process works now.

[craigmulligan]

We could install from github? npm 5 now comes with a prepare script which runs on every install from github which would allow us to do any build scripts.

[cskiraly]

The point that @nopbyte made is that submodules allow a simple local workflow without going through a centralized repo (be it github or something else). The possibility to have such a local workflow is a key git feature we don't really want to loose.

What would be the advantage of using npm?

[craigmulligan]

Are we doing the development in the container? If so you could npm link you modules and then mount node_modules into the container which should save build times in development.