[dart-misc] About supporting a flat (gist like) structure to easily share dart snippets

[Kasper Peulen]

Hi all,

Some time ago I made this video about how to easily clone a dartpad in
webstorm:

Now dartpad stores their snippet as gist, and as gist allow only a flat
project structure, every dartpad uses a flat structure as well with the
following files:
index.html, main.dart and styles.css.

Now the problem is that, pub doesn't really seem to support this structure.
So if you are going to include packages, and transformers, things become a
bit less easy then as this video suggests.

For example `pub serve .` will not work. Webstorm does some magic, at least
in Webstorm 10, I could get any kind of snippet to work.

For example this angular 2 snippet:
https://gist.github.com/kasperpeulen/dd353c3d95b2da3dd74b

Webstorm seems to use `pub serve packages` in this case to serve the flat
structure:

/usr/local/opt/dart/libexec/bin/pub serve packages --port=63372
Loading source assets...
Serving angular2.angular2_NgIf packages on http://localhost:63372
Build completed successfully
[packages] GET /angular2/src/reflection/reflection.dart => angular2.angular2_NgIf|packages/angular2/src/reflection/reflection.dart
[packages] GET /angular2/src/reflection/reflection_capabilities.dart => angular2.angular2_NgIf|packages/angular2/src/reflection/reflection_capabilities.dart
[packages] GET /angular2/angular2.dart => angular2.angular2_NgIf|packages/angular2/angular2.dart
[packages] GET /angular2/src/reflection/reflector.dart => angular2.angular2_NgIf|packages/angular2/src/reflection/reflector.dart
[packages] GET /angular2/src/reflection/types.dart => angular2.angular2_NgIf|packages/angular2/src/reflection/types.dart
[packages] GET /angular2/src/reflection/platform_reflection_capabilities.dart => angular2.angular2_NgIf|packages/angular2/src/reflection/platform_reflection_capabilities.dart


But now in Webstorm 11, this doesn't work anymore, as there is no packages
directory anymore.

I think it would be great if pub would support something like `pub serve
.` or maybe some convention like `pub serve dartpad` or `pub serve gist`.

This is just so that people can easily share code. So if someone at slack
ask, "hi all, how I could I setup oauth2 github authencitation with only
client side code in dart?"
Then I can just share this gist:
https://gist.github.com/kasperpeulen/ec3f3717f398ccce389e
Clone it in your editor, and it will run out of the box.

I'm trying to setup some kind of community driven dart cookbook, and this
website also uses gists as backend with the same convention as dartpad
(index.html/main.dart/styles.css).
I want to make sure every snippet on this website pass the following
quality standard: "every dartpad/gist will run directly out of the box in
your editor."
I can only make this promise, if dart allows to run a flat structure

['Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc]

Post by Kasper Peulen
Webstorm seems to use `pub serve packages` in this case to serve the flat

Strange. I guess we never disallowed this in pub, but it was certainly
never an intentional feature to be able to serve the "packages" directory
on its own. That's... weird. But if it solves some problems for WebStorm,
more power to them. :)

Post by Kasper Peulen
I think it would be great if pub would support something like `pub serve
.` or maybe some convention like `pub serve dartpad` or `pub serve gist`.

Pub historically didn't support .dart files at the top level of a package
for complex historical reasons I won't get into. Now that we have the
.packages file, I believe the constraints that led to that have gone away.
(Actually, the change we did a *long* time ago to symlink directly to "lib"
instead of the root directory may have removed this constraint.)

I think it would be possible now for us to support entrypoints at the top
level of a package.

Note the emphasis on "entrypoints". What we would not support is a library
in the top level of your package that you could import using a "package:"
URL, since there is no "package:" URL that resolves to the top level of
your package. But I think that would be fine.

Natalie may know of some other limitations I'm forgetting, but I think this
is possible. It would make for a simpler layout for tiny packages, which
would be great. Want to file a feature request
<https://github.com/dart-lang/pub/issues>?

Thanks!

- bob

Post by Kasper Peulen
This is just so that people can easily share code. So if someone at slack
ask, "hi all, how I could I setup oauth2 github authencitation with only
client side code in dart?"
https://gist.github.com/kasperpeulen/ec3f3717f398ccce389e
Clone it in your editor, and it will run out of the box.
I'm trying to setup some kind of community driven dart cookbook, and this
website also uses gists as backend with the same convention as dartpad
(index.html/main.dart/styles.css).
I want to make sure every snippet on this website pass the following
quality standard: "every dartpad/gist will run directly out of the box in
your editor."
I can only make this promise, if dart allows to run a flat structure

[Kasper Peulen]

Post by 'Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc
Note the emphasis on "entrypoints". What we would not support is a

library in the top level of your package that you could import using a
"package:" URL, since there is no "package:" URL that resolves to the top
level of your package. But I think that would be fine.

Makes sense. For my case, I would only need top level entrypoints to be
supported.

Post by 'Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc
Natalie may know of some other limitations I'm forgetting, but I think

this is possible. It would make for a simpler layout for tiny packages,
which would be great. Want to file a feature request
<https://github.com/dart-lang/pub/issues>?

Sure. I will create an issue and try a PR.

Post by 'Bob Nystrom' via Dart Misc

Post by Kasper Peulen
Webstorm seems to use `pub serve packages` in this case to serve the flat

Strange. I guess we never disallowed this in pub, but it was certainly
never an intentional feature to be able to serve the "packages" directory
on its own. That's... weird. But if it solves some problems for WebStorm,
more power to them. :)

Post by Kasper Peulen
I think it would be great if pub would support something like `pub serve
.` or maybe some convention like `pub serve dartpad` or `pub serve gist`.

Pub historically didn't support .dart files at the top level of a package
for complex historical reasons I won't get into. Now that we have the
.packages file, I believe the constraints that led to that have gone away.
(Actually, the change we did a *long* time ago to symlink directly to
"lib" instead of the root directory may have removed this constraint.)
I think it would be possible now for us to support entrypoints at the top
level of a package.
Note the emphasis on "entrypoints". What we would not support is a library
in the top level of your package that you could import using a "package:"
URL, since there is no "package:" URL that resolves to the top level of
your package. But I think that would be fine.
Natalie may know of some other limitations I'm forgetting, but I think
this is possible. It would make for a simpler layout for tiny packages,
which would be great. Want to file a feature request
<https://github.com/dart-lang/pub/issues>?
Thanks!
- bob

Post by Kasper Peulen
This is just so that people can easily share code. So if someone at slack
ask, "hi all, how I could I setup oauth2 github authencitation with only
client side code in dart?"
https://gist.github.com/kasperpeulen/ec3f3717f398ccce389e
Clone it in your editor, and it will run out of the box.
I'm trying to setup some kind of community driven dart cookbook, and this
website also uses gists as backend with the same convention as dartpad
(index.html/main.dart/styles.css).
I want to make sure every snippet on this website pass the following
quality standard: "every dartpad/gist will run directly out of the box in
your editor."
I can only make this promise, if dart allows to run a flat structure

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Kasper