Separate server functionality and its heavy dependencies (express-pouchdb)

[bkniffler]

Hey there,
I guess most people will use rxdb without using the server functionallity (could be wrong though). But express-pouchdb is quite heavy and leaving it in dependencies will, for example, cause electron-builder to compile fsevents on each build, since it is used by express-pouchdb or one of its dependencies.

Wouldn't it make sense to allow to opt-out of express-pouchdb/express for rxdb by moving it to to a separate package? Unfortunately I don't see any other way to make installing express-pouchdb optional.

[pubkey]

Good arguments. Do you think it would be an option to add pouch-server as peer dependency?
We currently do not use lerna so publishing multiple packages would create more complexity.

[bkniffler]

I thought about having a peerDependency, but I wasn't too sure about the effects that'd have on npm/yarn/pnpm. After a quick research, yarn/npm(3+) will just warn you about the absence while npm 1+2 will actually install the dependency. In my opinion, this is acceptable. It will break existing installs though since people with yarn/npm(3+) will need to include it in their dependencies.

We should just be aware that we're actually abusing the peerDependencies, and there might be some side effects we do not currently know of. Btw I've seen some discussion about optionalPeerDependencies, but they are unlikely to ever happen.

I say, lets go for peerDependencies.

[pubkey]

Let's me think about this some time.
Atm I would prefer abusing peerDependency over having a multi-module. Splitting the server-plugin into it's own module would also create a breaking change.

Other opinions would be welcomed.

[pubkey]

Hi @bkniffler
I added this todo to the list for the next major release, because it will we a breaking change.
I think next major publish will be done with the next pouchdb-version. I hope you can wait for this.

[hubgit]

I found another reason to do this: at the end of the dependency chain rxdb -> express-pouchdb -> pouchdb-replicator -> random-uuid-v4 is an outdated version of random-uuid-v4 which has jest as a dependency, which was conflicting with the version of jest/jest-environment-jsdom installed as a real dependency of my project. This took a while to debug, and adds to the feeling that rxdb is installing dependencies that shouldn't really be there.