Introduction
For those of us living in the NodeJS ecosystem, dependencies management is usually done by npm, nnpm, or similar.
However, versioning specification within NodeJS is far more simpler than the previous legacy Maven POM which is widely used in Java projects.
NodeJS dependencies versioning
NodeJS only introduce 3 types of versioning specification including exact versioning, minor versioning, and major versioning.
Pin a version
Accept only version 1.1.0.
{
"dependencies": {
"react": "1.1.0"
}
}Pin a minor version
Accept 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, … but not 1.2.0 and so on.
{
"dependencies": {
"react": "~1.1.0"
}
}Pin a major version
Accept 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.2.0, … but not 2.0.0 and so on.
{
"dependencies": {
"react": "^1.1.0"
}
}Maven dependencies versioning
Maven versioning management allows soft and hard versioning and is based on math concepts of domains.
Soft dependencies versioning
Use 1.0 if no other version appears earlier in the dependency tree.
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld</groupId>
<version>1.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>Hard dependencies versioning
Only accept version 1.0
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld</groupId>
<version>[1.0]</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>Versioning range: (1.0,1.2], [1.0,1.2), (1.0,1.2), [1.0,1.2]
Same with specific domains in math.
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld</groupId>
<version>(1.0,1.2]</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>Version less than 1.0
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld</groupId>
<version>(,1.0)</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>Version greater than 1.0
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld</groupId>
<version>(1.0,)</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>Multiple version ranges
Accept any version less than 1.1 and greater than 1.1 which is equivalent to excluding version 1.1. Especially when version 1.1 has a critical bug.
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld</groupId>
<version>(,1.1),(1.1,)</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>Exclude dependency of a dependency
Install site.chientrm.helloworldbut exclude site.chientrm.helloworld.examples
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld</artifactId>
<version>1.0.0</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>site.chientrm</groupId>
<artifactId>helloworld.examples</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
</dependencies>Discussion
NodeJS has much simpler dependencies versioning management while Maven has a more details manager. However, there’s no official argument indicating that a more details manager would give a better development experience. Meanwhile, the NodeJS community has been observing no obstacles using the current manager.
