Browser support without user-provided polyfills

[ymotton]

Ever since webpack 4->5 removed node polyfills for builtin packages like url, http and https, there are a number of hoops you need to jump through in order to be able to use packages that use them in the browser.

Any chance you are considering a browser-native version of the client?
I suppose you could release a client that just uses the polyfills locally?

[liammclennan]

Hi @ymotton,

I suspect we ended up here because seq-logging was designed for Node and not originally intended to run in the browser. A better client-side experience would certainly be interesting if anyone would like to look at it.

[ymotton]

@liammclennan I'm fine forking a version specifically for the browser if you'll maintain it as the product evolves?

[liammclennan]

It would be better not to maintain two copies of the same library if it can be modified to work nicely in both environments.

It is probably best for seq-logging to depend on browser APIs and be polyfilled on Node.

[u-rogel]

@liammclennan I would like to use this tool as well both on browser and node. Since node v18 we can use fetch in node as well. Will switching to fetch would be an approach you are willing to follow?

If yes I would gladly help.

[u-rogel]

@liammclennan migrating away from Buffer was more of an issue but possible as well in node v18.
Submitted a draft for a PR #64. Looking forward for your feedback.

[liammclennan]

@u-rogel thank you for the PR. Do you think it could include a fetch polyfill so that it can work in node < 18? Otherwise we have to bump the major version. Most users of seq-logging are via one of the other libraries (pino-seq, winston-seq etc) and they won't get the upgrade.

[liammclennan]

I've run into another wrinkle. require('buffer').Blob does not exist in Node 12.

[KodrAus]

Looks like Node 12 is over a year past EOL now based on these release notes:

The 12.x release line now moves into "Active LTS" and will remain so until October 2020. After that time, it will move into "Maintenance" until end of life in April 2022.

If it's too troublesome we may be able to drop support for it. What do you think?

[liammclennan]

seq-logging will drop support for Node 12 in version 2.0.0.

[u-rogel]

Hi @liammclennan @KodrAus I would like to make a PR which will resolve the problem of bundling this module with webpack for browsers and also will not require the usage of node-fetch in node environment.
Would it be something you would consider to merge?

[liammclennan]

@u-rogel what is your plan?

[u-rogel]

I want to use Rollup compile time conditionals to select the relevant requires for the environment. Then to export two different bundles one for node, one for browser from the same codebase.
I was busy the last two months, but can write now a quick PR that we can talk about if you want.

[KodrAus]

@u-rogel if possible I think we should avoid needing to use a bundler or adding build steps for this library. Is the problem you're solving just support for fetch pre Node 18?

[u-rogel]

The current version of the bundle prevent it from being used with many features of the standard js JS bundlers, since they are hoisting any require / import they find to the top of the fail. In our case my vue and react projects bundlers are failing since 'node-fetch' is not installes.
Specific output for each environment will solve it. Then browsers will not even get the 'node-fetch' require statement.
Node 18 fetch will be solved by it, but that is not my goal.

I will make a draft PR later, so you can take a look.