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Switching between node versions

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We all know how “Stable” Front End technologies are.

Sometimes you need to work on different projects and switch your node versions. Every time, when I change node version to the newer one using n, I run into issues with running grunt, gulp, webpack and @angular/cli.

Here is an example.

Currently, I’m on version 7.8.0. When I go to global packages folder (/usr/local/lib/node_modules) I see the following picture:

Which is totally fine! Here I checked my node version (which is in fact 7.8.0) and verified that I don’t have any outdated packages.

However, let’s see what would happen if I change my node version to an old one (for example 0.10.28) and then switch it back to 7.8.0. Then I would verify outdated packages once again.  

It turned out that I have an outdated npm and missing @angular/cli package.

Conclusion

Every time you’re switching node versions:

  1. Navigate to the folder with the global packages – /usr/local/lib/node_modules (for Mac)
  2. Run sudo npm install -g npm@latest – to have the latest version of npm
  3. Run (sudo) npm update to stay with the latest npm and other dependencies