CODEWITHSUNDEEP
npm
Solo
Solo

Reputation: 6957

NPM to existing project?

I have an online site and Im going to overhaul it. While I cannot find any information about if I can use npm and some kind of package manager (e.g Webpack) on live site which is on shared host (which has latest Node.js, npm support etc), Im going to develope it locally and worry about "publishing" it later on.

Is there a way to somehow covert my current downloaded project to npm project or Im better off just starting a new project? This is rather confusing, I've never used npm before.

Im using WordPress, everything is run with PHP atm but Im going to overhaul it and use Node.js.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3872

Answers (1)

chugadie
chugadie

Reputation: 2873

NPM can be used to collect and manage Javascript dependencies for the browser so as to create a stand alone front-end JS app. BUT, bower is probably a better choice.

NPM is designed to manage Javascript dependencies for projects that use NodeJS or use the CommonJS module format for requiring modules.

Bower is specifically a package manager (like npm or composer) but it is meant to manage browser based javascript dependencies.

Currently, javascript doesn't have a formally defined module/import system, so a number of competing require() functions are been produced. NodeJS comes with a require() function that searches the npm/ folder for modules. Browserify is a pre-processor that can scan the npm folder for a dependency and all of its dependencies and bundle them into 1 file for a browser to download (because browser's don't have a require() function because the JS standard doesn't have define one)

I might be rambling here, but you should probably look at bower, and then - at some point in the future - look at either browserify or requirejs to combine and optimize all the JS plugins for your front-end app.

Edit for clarity:

Basically there are 2 engines to run your JS application: the browser or NodeJS. NodeJS needs npm, the browser has no idea what npm is. If you want to write a clean, single page app, all JS front-end for a PHP backend, you don't need NodeJS, and therefore don't need npm. Using npm will prematurely complicate the development of a front-end browser app because it will force you to decide on a require() implementation (Browserify or Requirejs) right from the start.

Upvotes: 1

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