sml-buildscripts VS pkg

I also use .mlb files exclusively and agree with your general point - but I do make use of Poly/ML and occasionally SML/NJ against the same sources, using scripts to drive them from .mlb files: https://github.com/cannam/sml-buildscripts

These scripts are really limited. They only support the simplest .mlb files that are really just lists of other files, and the semantics are technically incorrect because they have no way to reset the environment when beginning each new .mlb file in, as the spec says they should. I use them scrappily during development and then generally use MLton for production builds. But you can get quite a lot done within those limitations, and it's very nice to have the faster compilation of Poly/ML, as well as the option of seeing error messages from more than one compiler.

I don't remember the details, and cannot find my notes on vercel/pkg. But looking at https://github.com/vercel/pkg right now I see the project has been deprecated in favour of single-executable-applications

> Standalone CLI — we haven’t worked on a standalone CLI for the new engine yet, but will absolutely have it before the v4.0 release.

This part is the most exciting to me. Given the rest of the release announcement, I'm assuming this means that it'll be built in Rust rather than embed Node. While I'm not a Rust zealot of anything, I'm very partial to not embedding Node. Particularly when it depends on using Vercel's now-abandoned pkg[1] tool.`

[1] https://github.com/vercel/pkg

The npm package called "pkg" seems to be the standard for packaging NodeJS applications

https://www.npmjs.com/package/pkg

Unfortunately you also need to bundle all your code into a single file for it to work, but you can use any bundler (webpack, parcel, etc) you want at least

Nodejs support for "single executable applications" is getting there - this issue below is preventing wider adoption at the moment:

"The single executable application feature currently only supports running a single embedded script using the CommonJS module system."

https://nodejs.org/api/single-executable-applications.html

Should be an awesome game changer for node.js when the feature gets rounded out.

Also check out vercel's `pkg`: https://github.com/vercel/pkg/issues/1291

Yes, you can. Check out pkg for a fun option, which can package up your project and Node.js into a single executable.

Further, you could experiment with the pkg tool that allows you to package up Node JS, your source, and your dependencies into one single executable for easy distribution.

package the app using https://github.com/vercel/pkg and use a smaller base image like alpine, busybox or even scratch (if possible)

Check this thread: https://github.com/vercel/pkg/issues/1685