To .handler or not + always use term "middleware"?

[brillout]

Pro: Aesthetically I like the .handler convention.
Con: Technically .handler.js is just a regular .js file so it could be a bit misleading (I usually expect .something.js to be special in some way).

On a tangent, I'm thinking maybe we could/should always use the term "middleware" and not focus on the "middleware"/"handler" distinction. But I don't know, maybe it's actually helpful for the documentation / clarifying things.

Maybe it should be .middleware.js instead of .handler.js. (Unless .handler.js cannot be a middleware.)

Anyways, just thinking out loud. I ain't that familiar with universal-middleware. You probably thought a lot more about all this than I did. (Feel free to ignore this discussion if you don't see potential in it.)

[magne4000]

On a tangent, I'm thinking maybe we could/should always use the term "middleware" and not focus on the "middleware"/"handler" distinction. But I don't know, maybe it's actually helpful for the documentation / clarifying things.

Maybe it should be .middleware.js instead of .handler.js. (Unless .handler.js cannot be a middleware.)

We need the distinction for documentation purpose first, indeed, but not exclusively.
All server wrappers usually have 2 variants, createHandler and createMiddleware. This is required for 2 things: Proper typing support for most servers, and better error handling. It will also generate less bloat on some targets, but that just a side effect.

Why .handler and .middleware naming?

The motivation was to be able to guess that a file must be wrapped by universal-middleware if it appears in an entry during build, in order to keep everything in a single build process (similar to what Vike does with + files).

[magne4000]

Also, I would like to add that some targets do not support middlewares, only handlers (like Next.js). Handlers are the minimal founding block of universal-middleware. Because of that, middlewares can be considered as an upgrade on top of handlers for targets that support it.

[brillout]

Sounds good.

Since it actually does add functionality (to tell universal-middleware's bundler what the file is defining) I guess it makes sense 👍