Nah it's less about the standard library and more about the fact that Javascript doesn't have dead code removal so keeping a package small is one way to ensure

Nah it's less about the standard library and more about the fact that Javascript doesn't have dead code removal so keeping a package small is one way to ensure you aren't pulling in code you aren't going to use. Of course the failure mode here is that you if you still choose a batteries included framework. (i.e. Angular, or a React powered framework) you end up pulling in a whole bunch of code you don't use and the list of dependencies is unmanageable. But because javascript was born in the browser and most javascript still has to be shipped to a browser it has constraints most other languages do not.