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Yet another package manager except it teaches you how to write one. Nice demo with explaining titles. Too bad I don't know JS and honestly I don't think the wor

Yet another package manager except it teaches you how to write one. Nice demo with explaining titles. Too bad I don't know JS and honestly I don't think the world needs another package manager just like it doesn't need another single page web app to read Hello World. But the post definitely gives a bird's eye view of things.

arcatek 9y ago
Author here! Our goal in this article wasn't to build another package manager (we've got our hands already full with Yarn :), but rather to give JavaScript developers some insight as to what's going on under the hood every time they install their dependencies. We hope it will contribute to demystify package managers, and give people plenty of ideas to improve their favorite ones - Yarn is a community project, and we're always happy to see new contributors step in!
- amorphid 9y ago
  >> (we've got our hands already full with Yarn :) (we've got our hands already full with Yarn :\))
moron4hire 9y ago
I don't understand these sorts of comments. The world probably doesn't need a lot of different things--another video game, another search engine, another social network--but strict need is not why we do things. Why was it so important for you to leave this sort of dismissive comment?
- jakub_g 9y ago
  Agree with the parent. Regarding yarn, it was created because npm started showing weaknesses in many things, with large and complex dependency trees: install was slow, sometimes unreliable and not cross-platform portable, and the codebase was difficult to refactor due to legacy code and backward compatibility, so it made more sense to create a new package manager without that burden and try to iteratively align with npm to become a drop-in replacement. It's easy to fall into the fatigue due to new languages, tools etc. coming out each week but please think twice before posting dismissive comments like that. I observe a lot of "I don't read HN anymore" sentiment lately among top tech Twitter users, partially due to that. There's a lot of awesome stuff being given out for free and people are whining. (Yes, I'm a bit tired of constantly following and evaluating things, but I keep it for myself.) The situation came to the point where some guys are thinking about not opensourcing their tools anymore due to constant criticism and maintenance fatigue. Read the two links below (accidentally, the first one is from yarn co-author!): https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/879282797915119616 https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/879282797915119616 https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/ https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-...
  - moron4hire 9y ago
    I've seriously thought about it myself, shutting off and going back to closed software. I've had my software praised one week as innovative and awesome, to the next week being "yet another example of what is wrong with these young developers and their JavaScript" (I'm 35, I've been programming for 20 years). All here on HN. I won't even touch Reddit anymore.
    - oblio 9y ago
      Have fun writing it and using it and/or make money from it. Nothing else really matters...
- pfranz 9y ago
  Exactly. Most CS curriculums have an OS and compiler course where you write one. Does the world need each student to write a new compiler or OS? No, but writing a toy version is incredibly helpful in learning how one works when you interact with it. By looking at the article title, then the url, I instantly knew it was about going over the internals instead of advocating for more package managers.
  - always_good 9y ago
    What's sad is that, from the title, I knew there'd be HN comments whining about "Ugh, why another package manager?"

arcatek 9y ago

Author here! Our goal in this article wasn't to build another package manager (we've got our hands already full with Yarn :), but rather to give JavaScript developers some insight as to what's going on under the hood every time they install their dependencies. We hope it will contribute to demystify package managers, and give people plenty of ideas to improve their favorite ones - Yarn is a community project, and we're always happy to see new contributors step in!

amorphid 9y ago
>> (we've got our hands already full with Yarn :) (we've got our hands already full with Yarn :\))

moron4hire 9y ago

I don't understand these sorts of comments. The world probably doesn't need a lot of different things--another video game, another search engine, another social network--but strict need is not why we do things. Why was it so important for you to leave this sort of dismissive comment?

jakub_g 9y ago
Agree with the parent. Regarding yarn, it was created because npm started showing weaknesses in many things, with large and complex dependency trees: install was slow, sometimes unreliable and not cross-platform portable, and the codebase was difficult to refactor due to legacy code and backward compatibility, so it made more sense to create a new package manager without that burden and try to iteratively align with npm to become a drop-in replacement. It's easy to fall into the fatigue due to new languages, tools etc. coming out each week but please think twice before posting dismissive comments like that. I observe a lot of "I don't read HN anymore" sentiment lately among top tech Twitter users, partially due to that. There's a lot of awesome stuff being given out for free and people are whining. (Yes, I'm a bit tired of constantly following and evaluating things, but I keep it for myself.) The situation came to the point where some guys are thinking about not opensourcing their tools anymore due to constant criticism and maintenance fatigue. Read the two links below (accidentally, the first one is from yarn co-author!): https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/879282797915119616 https://twitter.com/sebmck/status/879282797915119616 https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/ https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-...
- moron4hire 9y ago
  I've seriously thought about it myself, shutting off and going back to closed software. I've had my software praised one week as innovative and awesome, to the next week being "yet another example of what is wrong with these young developers and their JavaScript" (I'm 35, I've been programming for 20 years). All here on HN. I won't even touch Reddit anymore.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Have fun writing it and using it and/or make money from it. Nothing else really matters...
pfranz 9y ago
Exactly. Most CS curriculums have an OS and compiler course where you write one. Does the world need each student to write a new compiler or OS? No, but writing a toy version is incredibly helpful in learning how one works when you interact with it. By looking at the article title, then the url, I instantly knew it was about going over the internals instead of advocating for more package managers.
- always_good 9y ago
  What's sad is that, from the title, I knew there'd be HN comments whining about "Ugh, why another package manager?"