Bundling with webpack will fail with default settings

[Domiii]

Due to #1538, webpack builds will fail by default (workaround provided).

Considering how popular webpack is, would be great if there can be a more versatile solution. As this guy points out, it is easily fixed by just not using the package.json browser field anymore. Any thoughts?

(PS: I just spent hours debugging this engine.io bug not allowing me to connect, because they accidentally silenced the error. - Not saying that this is your fault, just referencing.)

[lpinca]

I'm 👎 on removing the browser field because if we do that people will start opening issues again about not being able to bundle for the browser like it was done countless of times in the past despite it being documented https://github.com/websockets/ws#ws-a-nodejs-websocket-library.

[Domiii]

@lpinca You can just add an if in index.js instead - or have browser.js straight-up raise an error, rather than letting them require/bundle it and waiting until way later to let them know?

If the consensus is to not change the code, I would vote in favor of at least amending the README with a Common Problems section, specifically getting into the broken webpack default behavior of targeting the package.json's browser field even in a node or umd build? (Probably need to knock on socket.io's door as well, as that is probably one of your bigger consumers)

(PS: sorry for accidentally clicking the Close Issue button - it did not even prompt for confirmation :/)

[lpinca]

To be honest I think everything works as expected here:

• Bundlers default target is the browser. It has always been like this. I think it makes sense, and I don't expect it to be changed any time soon.
• When the bundle is built for the browser an error is thrown. We could throw the error when the module is loaded instead of throwing it when calling the constructor but I think it does not make a big difference as the bundle would be generated anyway. The error will only be thrown at run time.
• The bundler should be configured to produce a bundle for a specific environment. webpack has the target option for this.

[Domiii]

@lpinca Ok I agree. Might want to mention it in the README though :)

(PS: I deleted my previous comment which was too much of a rant. Also thanks for pointing out the target option. Turns out that it itself is not properly documented, however light is shone on it in the resolve.mainFields documentation, which ironically I looked at before; must have been blind not to see the explanation there.)

[lpinca]

I'm not sure what to add to the README. Documenting how to bundle an app it's out of the scope of this project and redirecting the user to the webpack documentation does not make much sense as the user may use a different bundler.

[lpinca]

I'm closing this. Feel free to open a PR to add/change what you see fit.