this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Node frameworks are famous for this purely because of a lack of standard library. I feel like most languages have a standard library that balance being generic but still providing utilities of common used stuff. So a company that doesn’t want to rely on a random guy’s library can build their own with only the features they want. But with Node, any complicated feature is using a tree of hundreds of random packages that you have no idea who created them.
I believe the nodejs fiasco is what prompted this comic?https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theregister.com/AMP/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/
AMP-free url: https://www.theregister.com/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/
Another example is a large number of libraries using an external dependency to check if a number is odd.
It's possible leftpad was an example Randall was thinking of, but the date of the comic is Aug 17, 2020, more than 4 years after leftpad.
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2347:_Dependency
I believe it was the OpenSSL-security scandal, iirc.
Someone ought to write a Node.js fork that includes native implementations of popular modules that are unlikely to need maintenance like isodd. Then come with a custom version of NPM that refuse to install the packages.
Deno basically did this by including a standard library that removes the need for the most popular modules. It's the best js/ts experience I've ever had.
I just checked it and seems nice! Also seems to have been well received by the community.