Add note about node version requirement

[gtm-nayan]

The Unexpected token '.' error has appeared quite a few times on discord and recently on the Kit issue tracker as well. Older node.js doesn't support optional chaining so starting the dev server fails with no changes to the starter template whatsoever. It isn't a great experience for new people if they have to go hunting for the fix.

I posted a screenshot on discord, that one had an extra line in it, but that should be fixed now, and it actually looks decent without the huge gap.

[benmccann]

We specified Node 14 in the engines field of SvelteKit's package.json. That's supposed to stop people from running with old versions. If that's not working we should figure out why

[Conduitry]

I think as of a while ago npm by default won't refuse to install when the engines requirement isn't met, but will instead only print a warning. This message, however, will likely get lost among a bunch of other innocuous warnings (e.g., about fsevents on non-macOS platforms, and about packages for prebuilt esbuild binaries for other platforms you're not currently on). npm (rightfully, I think) now leaves it up to the user whether they want to abort on unmet engines fields, rather than letting the package author decide for themselves.

So, in particular, I do get a message from npm on Node 12 currently, but I also get a bunch of other messages. I don't know what the correct answer is here. If we do want to explicitly document this somewhere, I think it should be somewhere more visible than a C-style comment in a block of commands to be executed in the terminal.

[benmccann]

This isn't JS so should use bash-style commenting

Suggested change

	// You'll need Node.js v14 or higher
	# You'll need Node.js v14 or higher

[gtm-nayan]

Aah right, fixed now.

[gtm-nayan]

I also opted for a more muted color and italic text so it looks more like a comment. Chrome says the contrast ratio (5.28) should be fine.

I'm not too familiar with git, so let me know if there is any cleanup work to be done there.

[gtm-nayan]

I think it should be somewhere more visible than a C-style comment in a block of commands to be executed in the terminal.

Wouldn't it be the most visible here since this is where most people will learn the installation process for the first time?

[benmccann]

The fact that npm install is not failing looks like a bug on SvelteKit's side: sveltejs/kit#2952

[benmccann]

I'm going to close this in favor of the SvelteKit bug. If we decide we can't fix the SvelteKit bug for some reason then we can revisit this