simplify for cloudflare workers

[ryan-mars]

• Fork from ulidx
• Remove dependencies
• Remove PRNG detection
• Web Crypto API only

[perry-mitchell]

@ryan-mars Why fork instead of offering an update to this library to work with cloudflare workers?

[ryan-mars]

@perry-mitchell I don't recall what lead to the decision at the time but it wasn't meant as a slight. Would you like me to submit a PR?

[perry-mitchell]

I mean.. I can of course analyse what you changed and can add it to ulidx- was just curious as I created ulidx out of frustration for the lack of support on the original ulid library. If I could help anyone by supporting yet more environments well.. that was my goal. No offence taken, was just asking :)

[ryan-mars]

I'm happy to contribute back. I apologize for creating yet-another-package. It was done out of expedience. I'll look through the code and submit a PR.

The two major differences between Cloudflare Workers and other environments are date seed behavior, and crypto.

Date.now

From the Workers' docs:

In Workers, you can get the current time using the JavaScript Date API, for example by calling Date.now(). However, the time value returned by this is not really the current time. Instead, it is the time at which the network message was received which caused the application to begin executing. While the application executes, time is locked in place.

crypto

Workers provides the Web Crypto API via crypto global. Workers does not run on node. Instead the runtime more resembles a web worker. Thus, using the window shortcut to get the current global scope (instead of self) within a Worker will return an error.

[perry-mitchell]

Thanks @ryan-mars for the submitted work - I very much appreciate the gesture.

I can't of course merge this, as it drastically changes the library, removing a lot of the functionality and capability required for other platforms (node, web, web workers etc.). It does give me insight into how you've made it work in Cloudflare workers.

Workers provides the Web Crypto API via crypto global

This is interesting and something I need to look into. I have issues currently with this due to the Node REPL exposing the same property, and confusing the whole PRNG detection.

While the application executes, time is locked in place.

This sounds.. absolutely terrible. I don't understand why they'd choose to do this. All the same, I don't know how this library is meant to work when time can't be relied upon. It's a crucial part of the algorithm.

[perry-mitchell]

Closing this as I've addressed it in the relevant issue - #5.

[grempe]

I just wanted to say thanks to @ryan-mars for creating the fork that works with Workers. I came here to say it since issues/discussions seem to be closed on the fork repo. It's a useful tool for the large community of Workers developers.

🥇

Cheers.

[ryan-mars]

@grempe Thank you so much for the kind feedback. I just want to make something useful to others. I'll make sure issues and discussion are open.