Use npm@6.11 in CircleCI config to fix broken build from git dependencies

[thinkh]

Fixes #221.

Related PR https://github.com/datavisyn/dTiles/pull/210

Summary

• Switch phovea_clue to develop branch
• Installs npm@6.11 during CircleCI build to fix dependency problems
  • Probably fixed in v6.6.0 with Handle git branch references correctly npm/cli#123
• Improved build step names
• Show installed npm dependencies

Next steps

• Our Docker build image caleydo/phovea_circleci_python:v2.0 installs node 8.x, which resolves to node@8.14.0 and npm@6.4.1
  • Side note: we defined node@8.16.1, which (sadly) also resolves to npm@6.4.1 (see https://nodejs.org/en/download/releases/)
  • Hence, we must install npm@6.11 manually for CircleCI and our local dev environment, which requires an update of the Wiki documentation and the generator-phovea
• Instead of installing npm@6.11 with every CircleCI build we should rather install the version directly in our Docker build image and release it as caleydo/phovea_circleci_python:v3.0
• Afterwards we must update all our CircleCI configs to caleydo/phovea_circleci_python:v3.0

[thinkh]

@lehnerchristian and @dg-datavisyn Could you please run node -v and npm -v and post your local versions here for comparison? I'd like to compare the versions, because I'm still wondering why usually locally everything works well, but it results in CircleCI build errors.

[lehnerchristian]

I use node@8.15.0 and npm@6.4.1

[lehnerchristian]

but I'll update npm locally

[thinkh]

After testing the different npm versions it seems that npm@6.6.0 is working. Looking at the release notes it contains a fix that handles git branch references correctly.

[thinkh]

Following the release notes npm@6.9.0 solves git dependencies with #semver: don’t seem to resolve and dedup correctly, which might be relevant for us since we are using semver ranges in for git branches.

What I Wanted to Do
If you use ssh+git://url#semver: in two different projects, they won’t dedup unless the versions specified in the #semver: is exactly the same.

What Happened Instead
Two identical copies of a module is installed. even ‘npm dedup’ does not remove the copy

[thinkh]

We (@anita-steiner, @dg-datavisyn, and @lehnerchristian) agreed in a personal meeting that we will test and update to Node 12 LTS (see phovea/generator-phovea#191), which includes npm@6.11.

[thinkh]

The next generator release uses Node.js v12. After updating the CircleCI config to the new version, we this issue should be fixed.

[thinkh]

Close this PR and open a new (clean) PR instead.

See PR #255.