roadmap

[jonschlinkert]

I'd like to see the following on a formal roadmap (feedback, suggestions, ideas, requests, are all very welcome!):

• improve prompts: This is a top priority. Node.js needs a fast, pluggable prompt library that isn't bloated and dog slow. We might have some ideas here :)
• persisted data this needs to be easier and more consistent. Generate broke new ground by supporting chained generators (which means you can run multiple generators in a row from the command line, resulting in an experience that feels like one generator). While awesome, it introduces challenges regarding how data and state are managed from one generator to the next during prompts. Each generator has its own instance of generate, along with its own options, data, and so on. Generate also exposes a special "base" instance, on the app.base property, which can be used for shared data. This has turned out to be a really nice solution (since, after all, generators are used for scaffolding out projects, and not serving up web pages or apps etc). But we still have some rough edges around how "hints" are displayed and answers are pre-populated from successive prompts from multiple generators.
• docs: we know this is a problem with Verb, Assemble and Generate, but we're working on docs for all three and will be releasing them soon, along with new websites and resources for finding plugins, and more

TBC...

[jamen]

I like how generate's generators share an environment when ran. In fact, I initially added the ability to run multiple generators with yo under the same environment from the commandline; however, they didn't like the idea of having them share data on it (for justifiable reasons). I think at the very least it is useful for sub-generators and composing them together. So to me, that is one of the strong points of generate, because in my eyes it allows for more powerful composability (simpler prompting that scaffolds better and more normalized projects)

To give you an example of a place I wanted to use this in, I was going to make this "generator suite" for yeoman that scaffolded out multiple types of projects (called generator-devjs) using sub-generators that share a global.devjs object (or this.env.devjs)... so the main idea was that it only prompted once for certain information then reused it in the other sub-generators. That generator has since been discontinued because I've been content enough with generate's packages, though.

[jonschlinkert]

awesome! yeah we plan to expand on how generators share data. This is also a favorite feature of mine because of how intuitive it is (to reiterate for anyone who might be joining the convo, every generator is created with a new instance of generate, but we also expose a special "shared" instance that can be used to pass specific data or options back between generators).

[tunnckoCore]

Node.js needs a fast, pluggable prompt library that isn't bloated and dog slow. We might have some ideas here :)

Sounds great! keypress looks good as starting point for this job. I have some very old shit thingy with it https://github.com/tunnckoCore/prompt-promise. Let me know if can help or suggest something more - the word "pluggable" is enough.

Let's do it.

[jonschlinkert]

K you ready for this? :) I think we can simplify further, but it's just a start.

[jonschlinkert]

progress here: https://github.com/enquirer

[tunnckoCore]

awesome! i'll look.

[jonschlinkert]

@tunnckoCore can you check gitter? I left a msg

[tunnckoCore]

Yea, no problem. I'm on slack rooms of toolkit too. :)

[jonschlinkert]

I didn't know toolkit had one lol. I do now!

[jonschlinkert]

I just commented there

[tunnckoCore]

I didn't know toolkit had one lol. I do now!

Yea, I don't see you there https://[generatejs/basejs/verbjs/etc].slack.com/messages/general :)

[jonschlinkert]

you don't? I should be. I thought you meant an actual toolkit room.