Upgrade js-ipfsd-ctl to use bin-wrapper

[daviddias]

Our friends from Akasha made a great wrapper around the IPFS binary (https://github.com/AkashaProject/ipfs-connector/blob/master/src/IpfsBin.ts) that is way more portable when our current approach in js-ipfsd-ctl.

It uses https://www.npmjs.com/package/bin-wrapper which enables the app to select the binary for the right arch seamlessly (a issue we were hitting on electron).

Let's move to the bin-wrapper approach :)

[haadcode]

What were the issues with Electron?

[daviddias]

@haadcode we were still working on how to get the right binary on Windows, once the electron app got 'packaged'

[dignifiedquire]

Not only windows, any other OS than the one the packaging happens on. It is not entirely clear if this will solve all our issues, but most importantly I think these changes actually need to happen in https://github.com/ipfs/npm-go-ipfs

[haadcode]

Am I understanding this correctly: the problem is that when packaging, only the package for the platform you're packaging on gets pulled in?

[haadcode]

On that note, I've been wanting a local cache for the downloaded go-ipfs binary for a long time, so that the package doesn't get downloaded every time.

[daviddias]

@dignifiedquire I would even argue that npm-go-ipfs, go-ipfs-dep and js-ipfsd-ctl could all be just one module with binwrapper

[daviddias]

This required go-ipfs 0.4.3 to be released (Jun 29) and available through dist.ipfs.io. However, the work to make this migration can start immediately

[haadcode]

If I understand bi-wrapper correctly, it'll download the correct bin at runtime (if needed, I suppose there's some caching happening), is that correct?

If so, would we use it to package different (platform) versions of js-ipfs-ctl or would it work so that in my program, I require js-ipfs-ctl which in turn would download the correct go-ipfs version at runtime?

My main concern here is that if bin-wrapper requires programs to download the correct bin at runtime (as opposed to build time), that'll be a horrible solution for a lot of offline first programs. And in my book, that's an absolute no go.

If it doesn't work as described above, or bin-wrapper downloads the bins at build time, then we're fine.

Can someone clarify? @diasdavid @dignifiedquire @kenshyx