Migrate products to NPM automation when it makes sense

[marcwrobel]

Now that NPM automation has been merged (endoflife-date/release-data#36), we must have a look at all the products to see if they can/should use it.

Example : Vue migrated to NPM automation because it was simpler (6017e87).

[captn3m0]

Other relevant pages with mention of Javascript:

• EmberJS
• jQuery
• React
• Bootstrap
• Electron

Switching makes sense for all of these - NPM automation is much faster. However, NPM does seem to return rc/alpha/beta releases. And there's yanked releases as well that we should ignore.

So switching one by one probably makes sense. If you'd like to do this, our automation has some easier testing methods as well, so you don't have to test locally:

1. File PR on this repo to change auto configuration. This must be a local branch, not on a fork
2. Create a new branch with the same name on release-data repo. You can create it from the UI with the branch switcher.
   
3. Hopefully the action runs successfully, generates the right release files. You can then merge the PRs.

[captn3m0]

https://www.npmjs.com/package/kotlin?activeTab=versions

Surprisingly, Kotlin's standard library (published on NPM) is a good proxy for accurate Kotlin release dates. The git tags were quite inaccurate so this will be nice.,

[captn3m0]

Will take these up.

[marcwrobel]

Created #2132 to see how it behave (using the corresponding PR in release-data: endoflife-date/release-data#52).

[marcwrobel]

A few notes (based on endoflife-date/release-data@e0886cb).

Bootstrap:

• It seems versions before 3.1.1 are not on https://www.npmjs.com/package/bootstrap (https://getbootstrap.com/2.3.2/getting-started.html does not reference NPM).
• Only 3 versions had their date modified.

Electron:

• NPM adds 0.x releases
• Versions from 1.0.0 to 1.3.0 are not on NPM
• 100+ version date has been updated (usually by a day).
• The current file contains versions that were never released (9.0.6, https://releases.electronjs.org/releases/stable?version=9&page=9&limit=2). Maybe also 13.6.4 and 13.6.5.

Ember:

• Version 1.0.0 to 2.11.0 are not on https://www.npmjs.com/package/ember-source
• A few dozen version dates has been updated (usually by a day).

jquery:

• Except for a few one, version up to 1.10.2 are not on https://www.npmjs.com/package/jquery
• Version 2.0.0 to 2.0.3 are not on https://www.npmjs.com/package/jquery
• Only two version dates has been updated (by a few day).

Kotlin:

• a few 1.x version are not on https://www.npmjs.com/package/kotlin
• half of the versions dates has been updated (by 1 to 6 days).

React :

• NPM adds 0.x versions
• A dozen dates were updated (usually by a day)

[marcwrobel]

Proposal:

• boostrap: keep git - most date are in sync between git and npm.
• electron: use npm - a lot of dates would be more accurate and unreleased version would be removed. 1.x versions are not displayed on https://endoflife.date/electron so it's not a big deal if we loose them.
• ember: use npm - a lot of dates would be more accurate. 1.x and 2.x versions are not displayed on https://endoflife.date/ember so it's not a big deal if we loose them.
• jquery: keep git - most date are in sync between git and npm, and git allows us to retrieve more versions.
• kotlin: use npm - I think a lot of dates would be more accurate, even if not perfect (only checked the latest release dates for all release cycles).
• react: use npm - a few dates would be more accurate, not sure about the 0.x version thought (maybe they should be excluded ?)

@captn3m0, what do you think ? Should we do one PR or multiple PRs ?

[captn3m0]

Agree with all of the above. Single PR is fine.