dev-tools (possibly other samples) is statically compiling its dependencies into what it publishes

[RoboErikG]

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Component

dev-tools and possibly other plugins that depend on each other.

Description

dev-tools depends on a few other packages in samples, but instead of linking against them it's compiling all of their code into the published dev-tools package. The downstream effect of this is that if there's a version mismatch between block-tools and its dependencies (like block-test) anything that depends on dev-tools may get the wrong version.

I ran into this with browser tests which depends on dev-tools and block-test. Updating only the block-test version didn't do anything because it was only loading dev-tools and using the version that was compiled into it.

Reproduction steps

1. In Blockly, update package.json to use dev-tools@9.0.0 and block-test@7.0.2
2. Start the playground and switch to Test Blocks
3. Check the Statement category and you'll see the version from block-test@7.0.0 instead of @7.0.2

Stack trace

Screenshots

No response

[maribethb]

This isn't a bug, it's necessary given that we publish plugin packages that can be used directly by the browser.

If the published plugin did not compile its own dependencies into the package, then the plugin would not be usable without a build step, as the browser has no way of knowing where the dependencies are located. You need to do some kind of module resolution, either we do it at compile time and publish a package that can be used as-is (our current choice) or you force the user to do a build step to link the dependencies themselves.

We have discussed moving to the latter model before, but a lot of people are still using Blockly without a build step, and we need to think carefully about how to satisfy those users before changing this.

[rachel-fenichel]

@maribethb Any objections to closing this as not planned?