Startup is really slow due to a bunch of npm ops, it is a lot slower than it used to be. Perhaps provide mechanism to skip checking npm deps?

[JohnMcLear]

[muxator]

I have been using the following script (bin/fastrun.sh) since a long time when developing. It just runs Etherpad, assuming all the dependencies are in place. I never felt like worth commiting.

#!/bin/bash

set -eu

# source: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59895/how-to-get-the-source-directory-of-a-bash-script-from-within-the-script-itself#246128
DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" >/dev/null && pwd )"

echo "Running directly, without checking/installing dependencies"
node "${DIR}/node_modules/ep_etherpad-lite/node/server.js" "${@}"

Also, see the startup statement in the Dockerfile:

https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/blob/467fc11b723723275f1ebd0fed556a0525ea5f0b/Dockerfile#L50

Yes, Etherpad is slow to start because run.sh ends up running npm install every time, in time npm itself became more strict with its resolution dependency, and the dependencies got bigger. Try uploading package.json to https://bundlephobia.com, for example.

[JohnMcLear]

fastRun.sh is an awesome idea.

Can you get that committed as a PR please and include a modification to the README and Developer docs? +1 thanks!

Also, should we maybe have a message for developers when they run Etherpad that they can use fastRun if they don't want to check for deps each time?

Feels like a low hanger but defo worth it!