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9 years maintaining a sorta-popular open-source package: lessons learned

72 points by headalgorithm 4y ago

nattaylor 4y ago
Putting examples in the docs to avoid expanding the library is an excellent compromise!
- elliotpage 4y ago
  Agreed, this is really smart. I imagine (hope!) it also cuts down on recurring feature requests as it allows you to open up the realm of possibility for using the library in the users head - instead of needing to program in every use case, you introduce someone to serving themselves.
asgraham 4y ago
"...a sorta-popular JavaScript package. I say “sorta” because it’s used by lots of people, but it’s not pervasive. It had 105 million downloads in 2022." Is there any standard of popularity where 100 million+ downloads in a year is only "sorta" popular?
- tipiirai 4y ago
  I think GitHub stars tell much more about the popularity. NPM download count prefers dependencies like lodash.
  - irthomasthomas 4y ago
    90% of my github stars are projects which I skimmed over and thought looked cool and I might download one day.
    - elliotpage 4y ago
      Ditto. I use them to (hopefully) send good vibes the the creator / maintainer - you never know, they may need the tiny endorphin hit!
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      Which means it is a project you should some basic level of interest in. A download might be a dependency of a dependency of a dependency you don't really care about and actually would like to get rid of ...
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  Indeed. "13% as popular as React". Sheesh.
  - fmajid 4y ago
    It might just be a humblebrag
- LtWorf 4y ago
  I think companies don't set up local caches. So all those million downloads could just be a few companies running tests on every commit.
- amelius 4y ago
  Well, I didn't know about Helmet.js, but I've seen React mentioned many times on HN.
LtWorf 4y ago
> Without these optimizations, the package would be about 20 kilobytes larger [...] That saved about 2 terabytes of bandwidth in 2022 Ok, but since companies don't set up local caches, it seems pointless to me to stress about saving bandwidth. They don't seem to pay any attention to it.
donatj 4y ago
> sorta-popular > It had 105 million downloads in 2022 Oof, that stings. My most popular library has 11 million downloads total, over the last 10+ years. I thought it was “pretty-popular”

72 points by headalgorithm 4y ago

nattaylor 4y ago

Putting examples in the docs to avoid expanding the library is an excellent compromise!

elliotpage 4y ago
Agreed, this is really smart. I imagine (hope!) it also cuts down on recurring feature requests as it allows you to open up the realm of possibility for using the library in the users head - instead of needing to program in every use case, you introduce someone to serving themselves.

asgraham 4y ago

"...a sorta-popular JavaScript package. I say “sorta” because it’s used by lots of people, but it’s not pervasive. It had 105 million downloads in 2022." Is there any standard of popularity where 100 million+ downloads in a year is only "sorta" popular?

tipiirai 4y ago
I think GitHub stars tell much more about the popularity. NPM download count prefers dependencies like lodash.
- irthomasthomas 4y ago
  90% of my github stars are projects which I skimmed over and thought looked cool and I might download one day.
  - elliotpage 4y ago
    Ditto. I use them to (hopefully) send good vibes the the creator / maintainer - you never know, they may need the tiny endorphin hit!
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    Which means it is a project you should some basic level of interest in. A download might be a dependency of a dependency of a dependency you don't really care about and actually would like to get rid of ...
actionfromafar 4y ago
Indeed. "13% as popular as React". Sheesh.
- fmajid 4y ago
  It might just be a humblebrag
LtWorf 4y ago
I think companies don't set up local caches. So all those million downloads could just be a few companies running tests on every commit.
amelius 4y ago
Well, I didn't know about Helmet.js, but I've seen React mentioned many times on HN.

LtWorf 4y ago

> Without these optimizations, the package would be about 20 kilobytes larger [...] That saved about 2 terabytes of bandwidth in 2022 Ok, but since companies don't set up local caches, it seems pointless to me to stress about saving bandwidth. They don't seem to pay any attention to it.

donatj 4y ago

> sorta-popular > It had 105 million downloads in 2022 Oof, that stings. My most popular library has 11 million downloads total, over the last 10+ years. I thought it was “pretty-popular”