5 ms·

Show HN: See what other NPM packages everyone else is using

67 points by temple3188 11y ago

vinhboy 11y ago
You should have a list of top packages so we can easily test out the site. On a related note. It would be nice if there was a https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/ https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/ for AngularJS and NPM.
- temple3188 11y ago
  Yeah I did think about this, however after looking at https://www.npmjs.com/ https://www.npmjs.com/ I felt their 'packages people npm install a lot' kind of satisfied that criteria. I could put something along the lines of 'Top 10 most discovered packages' based on data from the site :)
  - vinhboy 11y ago
    Yes. Something like that would be very useful.
  - akamaka 11y ago
    I must say that I really like the uncluttered homepage the way it is!
- octref 11y ago
  I'm working on one and expect to be done around May. Just wondering, what kind of features do you want most?
  - vinhboy 11y ago
    Need to know what is the most popular package by category. Either by downloads or by github stars. Good luck with your project. I hope to use it.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Kiro 11y ago
This is a nice concept. When I start using a new library or framework I very often want to know what the best practices are. Seeing what else I "should" use is a step towards that.
lobster_johnson 11y ago
Also: When searching for packages, I recommend http://npmsearch.com http://npmsearch.com. It scores search results by popularity, which usually correlates with quality and maturity.
bryanrasmussen 11y ago
what npm packages compete with each other would be nice. It would be interesting(not saying useful, just interesting) to have something that was similar to TF-IDF for code. That would argue that everyone uses Express actually makes express not that meaningful. Of course that would assume that the concept of meaningfulness in text could transfer easily to meaningfulness in a software project, even though that is an area where I have never heard the concept broached.
fiatjaf 11y ago
You should filter out devDependencies. Everywhere I look I just see browserify, webpack, babel.
- bpicolo 11y ago
  I bet a surprising amount of people have all of those as a regular dependency.
- temple3188 11y ago
  You're right, at the moment I treat both dependencies and devDependencies the same, it made sense just to get an idea of what people were using, though a nice feature would be to differentiate between them. Thanks!
0xbadb002 11y ago
Maybe make it say "of xyz projects on github, foo% use " then a colon or an ellipse. Just a little suggestion rather than putting the first item in the dependency list and "etc".
akamaka 11y ago
This is fantastic all around. The visual design is perfect, it's fast, and within a minute of using it I discovered some new libraries which might be useful for my projects. It reminds me a bit of using Google search when it first launched and was less cluttered. The clear layout makes it easy enough to mentally filter out common packages which appear in every search result, like gulp and grunt, but it might be a nice bonus to highlight packages that are "most uniquely" associated with the search term and not used by everyone else, or to cluster tools which are alternatives to each other together (e.g. putting gulp and grunt side by side on the same line).
- temple3188 11y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I noticed it would be useful to cluster related packages together, that was the thinking behind introducing the filters to the right-hand side e.g. framework, test etc. When you click them it will toggle the view. I was hoping I could rely on the keywords associated with the package to cluster them, though as it turns there's not a lot of love for the keywords section, meaning clustering them would take manual effort. Doing it myself isn't feasible and I though about creating the means for users to contribute the info, just wanted to wait for demand for it first :). Thanks!
  - avtar 11y ago
    It would be great if the URL reflected the search results. I used your suggested "express" search but after getting the results the URL remains http://www.npmdiscover.com http://www.npmdiscover.com That makes sharing results with someone else or bookmarking fairly awkward. That being said, kudos for providing a resource that helps wade through all the npm packages out there!
    - temple3188 11y ago
      Yeah this is definitely the next thing to be done, a number of people have been asking for it so hopefully it'll live in the next few days. Thanks :)
jastanton 11y ago
Maybe I'm doing this wrong but I don't think react-native is a dependency of moment
- SimeVidas 11y ago
  Where does it say that?
  - jastanton 11y ago
    I searched react-native and moment came up as one of the results: http://i.imgur.com/Ceq04hr.png http://i.imgur.com/Ceq04hr.png
    - SimeVidas 11y ago
      That just means that from all the projects on GitHub that use react-native, 10% of them also use moment.
hartror 11y ago
Interesting. Given how much the Js scene changes from month to month it would be useful to track this over time.

67 points by temple3188 11y ago

You should have a list of top packages so we can easily test out the site. On a related note. It would be nice if there was a https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/ https://www.ruby-toolbox.com/ for AngularJS and NPM.

temple3188 11y ago
Yeah I did think about this, however after looking at https://www.npmjs.com/ https://www.npmjs.com/ I felt their 'packages people npm install a lot' kind of satisfied that criteria. I could put something along the lines of 'Top 10 most discovered packages' based on data from the site :)
- vinhboy 11y ago
  Yes. Something like that would be very useful.
- akamaka 11y ago
  I must say that I really like the uncluttered homepage the way it is!
octref 11y ago
I'm working on one and expect to be done around May. Just wondering, what kind of features do you want most?
- vinhboy 11y ago
  Need to know what is the most popular package by category. Either by downloads or by github stars. Good luck with your project. I hope to use it.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Kiro 11y ago

This is a nice concept. When I start using a new library or framework I very often want to know what the best practices are. Seeing what else I "should" use is a step towards that.

lobster_johnson 11y ago

Also: When searching for packages, I recommend http://npmsearch.com http://npmsearch.com. It scores search results by popularity, which usually correlates with quality and maturity.

bryanrasmussen 11y ago

what npm packages compete with each other would be nice. It would be interesting(not saying useful, just interesting) to have something that was similar to TF-IDF for code. That would argue that everyone uses Express actually makes express not that meaningful. Of course that would assume that the concept of meaningfulness in text could transfer easily to meaningfulness in a software project, even though that is an area where I have never heard the concept broached.

fiatjaf 11y ago

You should filter out devDependencies. Everywhere I look I just see browserify, webpack, babel.

bpicolo 11y ago
I bet a surprising amount of people have all of those as a regular dependency.
temple3188 11y ago
You're right, at the moment I treat both dependencies and devDependencies the same, it made sense just to get an idea of what people were using, though a nice feature would be to differentiate between them. Thanks!

0xbadb002 11y ago

Maybe make it say "of xyz projects on github, foo% use " then a colon or an ellipse. Just a little suggestion rather than putting the first item in the dependency list and "etc".

akamaka 11y ago

This is fantastic all around. The visual design is perfect, it's fast, and within a minute of using it I discovered some new libraries which might be useful for my projects. It reminds me a bit of using Google search when it first launched and was less cluttered. The clear layout makes it easy enough to mentally filter out common packages which appear in every search result, like gulp and grunt, but it might be a nice bonus to highlight packages that are "most uniquely" associated with the search term and not used by everyone else, or to cluster tools which are alternatives to each other together (e.g. putting gulp and grunt side by side on the same line).

temple3188 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I noticed it would be useful to cluster related packages together, that was the thinking behind introducing the filters to the right-hand side e.g. framework, test etc. When you click them it will toggle the view. I was hoping I could rely on the keywords associated with the package to cluster them, though as it turns there's not a lot of love for the keywords section, meaning clustering them would take manual effort. Doing it myself isn't feasible and I though about creating the means for users to contribute the info, just wanted to wait for demand for it first :). Thanks!
- avtar 11y ago
  It would be great if the URL reflected the search results. I used your suggested "express" search but after getting the results the URL remains http://www.npmdiscover.com http://www.npmdiscover.com That makes sharing results with someone else or bookmarking fairly awkward. That being said, kudos for providing a resource that helps wade through all the npm packages out there!
  - temple3188 11y ago
    Yeah this is definitely the next thing to be done, a number of people have been asking for it so hopefully it'll live in the next few days. Thanks :)

jastanton 11y ago

Maybe I'm doing this wrong but I don't think react-native is a dependency of moment

SimeVidas 11y ago
Where does it say that?
- jastanton 11y ago
  I searched react-native and moment came up as one of the results: http://i.imgur.com/Ceq04hr.png http://i.imgur.com/Ceq04hr.png
  - SimeVidas 11y ago
    That just means that from all the projects on GitHub that use react-native, 10% of them also use moment.

hartror 11y ago

Interesting. Given how much the Js scene changes from month to month it would be useful to track this over time.