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When people criticize NPM for having millions of downloads for single-function packages, this is exactly the letter I always think of. When Joe Armstrong propo
by christophilus 7y ago
When people criticize NPM for having millions of downloads for single-function packages, this is exactly the letter I always think of.
When Joe Armstrong proposed this, I thought, "Hm, that's an interesting idea." But I think NPM has shown that it isn't such a great idea in practice.
- _pmf_ 7y agoIn Joe Armstrong's concept, the standard library still exists, it's just organized differently (i.e. while it's possible to switch out parts with high granularity, but not the default us case). NPM's stance is "there is no standard library, just use something and hope for the best". I.e. the release would still contain a curated, officially supported set of function that a) work together and b) are reasonably sure to not execute miners, not display ads and not post your environment variables to pastebin.
- Crinus 7y agoAssuming "package" is not just another name for "module" and that it goes away once "installed" (i do not know about NPM), what would be the difference between 1000 single function packages and a single 1000 function package?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago1000x as much metadata, and with small packages, you get more metadata than real code.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoFor what it’s worth, many of us are quite happy writing and using small NPM packages with clear responsibilities. Maybe it’s self evident to you that this is a horrible thing, but it’s not to me. But if you care to share, I would be happy to learn about the horrible things that will befall me, before they happen!