alt Hacker Newsnative modules. nodejs can have native modules (written in C++, Rust, etc...). Projects usually ship prebuilt natives binaries (for each arch/OS/Nodejs ABI combination) hosted on GitHub Releases and download them automatically at installation time; fallback to build from source if not found. that's where scripts are used
the reason for not bundling all native binaries is becasue the no. of combinations are huge and it can make module size hundreds of MBs
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vardump • today at 8:57 AM
There should be a path for local building as well. Node.js is being used on a lot of embedded systems. I’d imagine there are also lots of other reasons for local builds.
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Having a non-script method of downloading the right native binary would be a good next step.