enable gzip

[fengmk2]

https://registry.npmjs.com/npm now 1.8MB ...

gzip size only 195kb

[zeke]

whoa

[othiym23]

We're looking into this. @fengmk2 it makes more sense to us to put the gzip step in front of our couchapps (probably we're going to use haproxy to do that). Is that a solution that could work for you, or do you need it to be npm-registry-couchapp itself that does this?

[fengmk2]

@othiym23 the registry.npmjs.com enable gzip is ok.
:) no need for npm-registry-couchapp itself.

[sindresorhus]

It's now 2.5 MB, but could have been 85 KB with gzip on...

[fengmk2]

npm meta now become 3.6 MB, but npm-3.4.1.tgz itself only 2.6 MB...

[STRML]

Any status on this or a project where we can help it along?

[jacques]

@othiym23 you should be able to get this gzipped on Fastly using VCL.

[STRML]

@othiym23 The headers seem to indicate Varnish is in front of most/all of the npm servers; couldn't gzip simply be turned on there?

I'm really surprised this has gone on this long given that it would save cpu cycles, improve install times, and save considerable bandwidth (and cost), all by tweaking a few lines of configuration.

[zeke]

npm, Inc stopped all meaningful development on this app over a year ago, and they recently updated the README to make it official:

deprecation notice: as npm has scaled, the registry architecture has gradually migrated towards a complex distributed architecture, of which npm-registry-couchapp is only a small part. FOSS is an important part of npm, and over time we plan on exposing more APIs, and better documenting the existing API.

npm-registry-couchapp is still a core part of our functionality, but all new registry features are now added to the micro-services that now make up npm. For this reason, we will not be accepting any pull requests, or making any changes to this codebase going forward.

The new registry that powers npmjs.com is closed-source and inaccessible to the outside world. For more details on that sad fact, see https://github.com/npm/newww/issues/761

If you wish to chime in with your wishes for an imaginary new API, see https://github.com/npm/public-api