readable-stream v4

[mcollina]

I think it's time to start planning readable-stream v4.
Which version of Node.js should we pull from?

I would be ambitious and target v14.
I would also drop support for Internet Explorer, as it will go EOL later this year.

cc @ronag @vweevers @mafintosh

[mcollina]

We also have some other things we should fix:

1. rollup support
2. webpack 5 support Fix/remove node globals #435

[ronag]

I would be ambitious and target v14.

+1

I would also drop support for Internet Explorer, as it will go EOL later this year.

+1

[mafintosh]

SGTM

[ljharb]

@mcollina i still maintain that it's bad for the ecosystem to try to "fix" what webpack 5 broke, and would prefer to ask webpack 5 users to enable the workaround.

[vweevers]

Thinking further ahead, could stream ultimately use queueMicrotask in both node and browsers? After Node.js 10 is EOL (in 2021). Then stream is guaranteed to behave the same in node and browsers.

[ronag]

Thinking further ahead, could stream ultimately use queueMicrotask in both node and browsers?

Isn't that a case of just using Promise.resolve().then(cb) instead of process.nextTick(cb) (I think we are dropping IE?). There would be performance implications. Not sure whether those would be noticeable or not. Doing such a change would be semver-major. I'm unsure of the consequences since Promise has higher priority than nextTick.

EDIT: Sorry, I was not aware Node had queueMicrotask. Though, the above performance and timing concerns might still apply.

[vweevers]

There is a timing concern, yes, because the queueMicrotask queue is processed after the nextTick queue. That could pose a challenge in node core tests and specific stream implementations (especially the older ones that implement their own .destroy() etc).

[ronag]

While I'm not against the idea. I'm concerned that queueMicrotask might be a bit overly ambitious right now and could stall.

[mcollina]

I would not push that change to the ecosystem. This can break in oh-so-many unexpected ways.

I tend to agree with @ljharb. However it would likely be on us to develop some strategy to support webpack 5.

[tpluscode]

ES modules, please 🙏

[mcollina]

what about es modules?

[tpluscode]

what about es modules?

Replace commonjs with modules.

It would be very nice if the package did not rely on built-ins and commonjs so that it's runs natively in browser

[ljharb]

You don’t have to “replace” anything to do that, and you still need a build tool for the browser anyways - you can ship both ESM and CJS.

[tpluscode]

I don't think I fully understand your point @ljharb

and you still need a build tool for the browser anyways

The build is only the last step when you ship a complete app. Buildless dev environment is all the rage now with tools like es-dev-server or vite

To set a tangible goal, I would like this to work in a modern browser:

<script type="module">
// could be a bare import if import maps are used
import { Readable } from 'http://jspm.dev/readable-stream'
</script>

This will be impossible as long as anything in the dependency tree of readable-stream is commonjs