Subject: [bug#51838] [PATCH 00/11] guix: node-build-system: Support compiling add-ons with node-gyp.

From: Timothy Sample <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2021 14:55:31 -0500

Hello,

Philip McGrath <[email-masked]> writes:

> On 11/20/21 02:46, Liliana Marie Prikler wrote:
>> Am Freitag, den 19.11.2021, 23:33 -0500 schrieb Philip McGrath:
>>> * guix/build-system/node.scm (lower): Add an optional #:libuv?
>>> argument to tell the build system to add the version of libuv
>>> used as an input to the #:node package as an additional implicit
>>> input, so that packages needing libuv always get the correct version.
>> Would it change something if we always had libuv as implicit input?  I
>> don't think it'd do much for closure size, but it might impact implicit
>> package search as proposed by my solution to the #:absent-dependencies
>> thing.
>
> From a Guix perspective, I don't think it would make much difference,
> since libuv is always needed by node itself. Maybe it would require
> more grafting than would be needed otherwise?
>
> But I think the recommendation for authors of node add-ons is to avoid
> libuv unless it's really needed, because it has fewer stability 
> guarantees that other Node.js APIs.

My assumption is that most packages would ignore the libuv headers, and
they wouldn’t retain a reference to it (except via Node.js itself).
Hence, I don’t think it would make any difference either to grafting or
closure size to just always add it.

-- Tim