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well for node not js. deno does not require a package manager nor does the browser. i see js package management going into a completely different direction wher

well for node not js. deno does not require a package manager nor does the browser. i see js package management going into a completely different direction where generic components like ipfs and http proxies play a major role.

wilg 5y ago
NPM and Yarn are both widely used for front-end JavaScript code, usually with Webpack or some other horror. Deno is an interesting model, but maybe not widely applicable?
- fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
  Most browsers people actually use support ES6 modules natively now. So, bundling is sort of optional now.
  - e1g 5y ago
    Bundling is still required to avoid HTTP waterfall that would ensure if you load raw ES modules from the browser. A real-world frontend codebase will include 100-1000+ files (via transitive dependencies), and you do not want 100+ sequential HTTP request even over HTTP2. You might not need to transpile your app (via babel), but you still need to bundle it (via webpack/rollup/parcel/esbuild/swc/etc)
    - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
      Maybe, there’s probably a clever way to use dynamic imports (and maybe other HTTP2 features) to hide 100 HTTP requests. But, also, you can do quite a bit with carefully selected small dependencies and a minimal amount of JS: I have some relatively complex sites that forgo bundling with no perceptible issues here
      - e1g 5y ago
        There is a clever way: if you have to hit the network to make many requests for tiny data, you could batch the many small requests into a few larger requests, and in that response include all data you need for the tiny requests. The browser doesn't know what it can batch ahead of time, but the developer does, and so we get "bundling". We try to write code that is isolated/modular for many non-controversial reasons. A common strategy is to co-locate related functions/classes/logic in one file and keep this separate from unrelated logic in other files. The more your code does, the more logic to build, the more files you'll have. The same holds for your dependencies. The more they do for you, the more files/modules they need to isolate their logic. Thus micro-dependencies have few files in two cases: 1) they do relatively little and shift responsibility to your code 2) they do a lot but have already combined/compiled their files into 1-2 files for you, often using a bundler. ESM is an excellent native solution to referencing logic from other files so you can split & isolate your code when you write it. But this is an authoring strategy, and it should not dictate your distribution strategy.
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      Lol, yeah, I thought I’d use snowflake to debug and build my app. It worked perfectly fine out of the box, which was impressive. Unfortunately loading my app went from a second to half an hour (I think it just broke loading all the files somewhere).
      - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
        I think snowflake has a hybrid mode, where you bundle dependencies and not your application code. But, I’ve been blocked by React not working well with ESM
    - floatboth 5y ago
      Well… the waterfall would be gone on second load with cache-control:immutable, so it's not that terrible. And it would provide powerful motivation to trim that dependency tree :D
      - e1g 5y ago
        This requires URLs/filenames to be immutable, typically by having a hash of the content in the filename. Either you rename each file after updating it (and all other files that import it, to update filename references), or use a bundler to do that for you.
      - jeswin 5y ago
        Still unusably bad. First load performance is vital, and a very large number of visitors come without cached files. It's going to get worse as the battle between privacy tools and ad networks intensify. I totally agree with you on pruning dependency trees though.
- afiori 5y ago
  The deno model is not that you should not use a package manager, but rather that it is not provided by default. Many project are going to use some kind of central import/export system to keep track of external dependencies and that could perfectly well be the result of a package manager compiling the equivalent of a package.json to a .ts file. Only-URL imports does not mean that no structure is available

wilg 5y ago

NPM and Yarn are both widely used for front-end JavaScript code, usually with Webpack or some other horror. Deno is an interesting model, but maybe not widely applicable?

fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
Most browsers people actually use support ES6 modules natively now. So, bundling is sort of optional now.
- e1g 5y ago
  Bundling is still required to avoid HTTP waterfall that would ensure if you load raw ES modules from the browser. A real-world frontend codebase will include 100-1000+ files (via transitive dependencies), and you do not want 100+ sequential HTTP request even over HTTP2. You might not need to transpile your app (via babel), but you still need to bundle it (via webpack/rollup/parcel/esbuild/swc/etc)
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    Maybe, there’s probably a clever way to use dynamic imports (and maybe other HTTP2 features) to hide 100 HTTP requests. But, also, you can do quite a bit with carefully selected small dependencies and a minimal amount of JS: I have some relatively complex sites that forgo bundling with no perceptible issues here
    - e1g 5y ago
      There is a clever way: if you have to hit the network to make many requests for tiny data, you could batch the many small requests into a few larger requests, and in that response include all data you need for the tiny requests. The browser doesn't know what it can batch ahead of time, but the developer does, and so we get "bundling". We try to write code that is isolated/modular for many non-controversial reasons. A common strategy is to co-locate related functions/classes/logic in one file and keep this separate from unrelated logic in other files. The more your code does, the more logic to build, the more files you'll have. The same holds for your dependencies. The more they do for you, the more files/modules they need to isolate their logic. Thus micro-dependencies have few files in two cases: 1) they do relatively little and shift responsibility to your code 2) they do a lot but have already combined/compiled their files into 1-2 files for you, often using a bundler. ESM is an excellent native solution to referencing logic from other files so you can split & isolate your code when you write it. But this is an authoring strategy, and it should not dictate your distribution strategy.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Lol, yeah, I thought I’d use snowflake to debug and build my app. It worked perfectly fine out of the box, which was impressive. Unfortunately loading my app went from a second to half an hour (I think it just broke loading all the files somewhere).
    - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
      I think snowflake has a hybrid mode, where you bundle dependencies and not your application code. But, I’ve been blocked by React not working well with ESM
  - floatboth 5y ago
    Well… the waterfall would be gone on second load with cache-control:immutable, so it's not that terrible. And it would provide powerful motivation to trim that dependency tree :D
    - e1g 5y ago
      This requires URLs/filenames to be immutable, typically by having a hash of the content in the filename. Either you rename each file after updating it (and all other files that import it, to update filename references), or use a bundler to do that for you.
    - jeswin 5y ago
      Still unusably bad. First load performance is vital, and a very large number of visitors come without cached files. It's going to get worse as the battle between privacy tools and ad networks intensify. I totally agree with you on pruning dependency trees though.
afiori 5y ago
The deno model is not that you should not use a package manager, but rather that it is not provided by default. Many project are going to use some kind of central import/export system to keep track of external dependencies and that could perfectly well be the result of a package manager compiling the equivalent of a package.json to a .ts file. Only-URL imports does not mean that no structure is available