4 ms·

what a broken ecosystem.. The crazy thing is not that the package exists, but that it is used by JS devs.

yurishimo 18d ago
There’s a bit more nuance as to why. It’s not fair to say that the average JS dev is reaching for a package like is-odd/is-even. Years ago when npm was just getting started there was a lot of experimentation and land grabbing for packages. A few “prolific” developers were pushing these tiny utilities and then using them in their own projects which ended up being required as deps in other projects and then snowballed into is-odd being included in webpack at some point (I think I have that timeline roughly correct). It’s still a crappy problem for sure but it’s not fair to paint most JS devs with a brush so broad.
junon 18d ago
I feel like I have to remind people of this quite often, but the history is such that npm was lightweight at one point, bundling wasn't a thing, and while `isodd`/`iseven` are of course silly, things like `isarray` were not functions that existed back then (we didn't have Array.isArray). `typeof [] === 'object'` in JS, so e.g. my package `is-arrayish` checked for a similar structure to an array (whereas Id guess `isarray` checked for the prototype). `isarray` failed for the `arguments` keyword, which was needed for variadics before argument spreads were added to the language I believe in ES5. So of course they don't make sense now. But they were created for a reason. Before even Markov chains were a fad - let alone LLMs - we were trying to be as efficient as possible and maximize code reuse I stead of writing the same helper functions over and over again. That's what you're seeing.
- b112 18d ago
  [flagged]
  - junon 18d ago
    I think a lot of things end up that way, just at different timescales. Best we can do is learn from them and start again, IMO - however that looks.
  - toyg 18d ago
    "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions". Still true, probably thousands of years after the sentence was coined.
- zarzavat 18d ago
  Yes and the critical issue was tree shaking. Nowadays we have tree shaking so it doesn't matter as much but in the past people preferred small single function packages because they had less impact on the download size.
- ChiperSoft 18d ago
  Additional Context: for about two years functional programming was REALLY popular in the Node community. It was a fad to chain tons of tiny functions together, and thus lots of people wrote tons of tiny functions. This is why lodash/fp exists.
- wat10000 18d ago
  I don’t think it ever made sense. Code reuse improves efficiency when the code can be shared in memory, or when it needs to be updated and you only have to change it in one place. JS packages don’t give you sharing beyond what you’d get from copying the code. And these little things don’t need to be updated, and in fact you probably don’t want them to be. It’s a case of doing something without understanding why it’s done. Packages are good, code sharing is good, so use it for everything. But it misses why they’re good.
  - junon 18d ago
    This is all very easy to say in hindsight. It's missing the context of having been there, I think. Things were just different. Also, way more fun.
    - wat10000 18d ago
      I was definitely saying it at the time. But I wasn't embedded in the ecosystem, it was very much "those JavaScript guys are nuts, why would they do this?"
- IncreasePosts 18d ago
  You want to implement your own is-odd in your code - simple, right? isOdd = (x) => x % 2 == 1 Ut oh, your code is broken for negative numbers now since % isn't a true modulo operator... Fine then, isOdd = (x) => x % 2 != 0 Ut oh, your code is broken because isOdd("hi") returns true now... Fine then, isOdd = (x) => if(!isNumber(x)) throw... else return x%2 != 0 Ut oh, your code is now broken because isOdd(2^55+1) returns true now...
  - rtkwe 18d ago
    Ut oh? I've never seen that, is it variant on uh oh or something else?
    - IncreasePosts 18d ago
      It's something I'm fighting for in my own little way. Everyone does a glottal stop between the "uh" and "oh", so I'm trying to align the spelling Unlike the guy on him who writes all years with 5 digits like 02026, I have good reasons for my idiosyncracies.
      - luplex 18d ago
        Hm, I would not spell it with a "t" then, but maybe with an apostrophe instead. "Uh'oh" is more readable in my opinion and won't be mispronou in ced
  - Dylan16807 18d ago
    > Ut oh, your code is now broken because isOdd(2^55+1) returns true now... I think you messed up this example. Whether I literally use "2^55" with XOR or replace it with "2*55", that version of isOdd returns false. False for isOdd(58) is obviously correct. (Also thanks C for permanently screwing up the precedence of bitwise operations because you didn't want to break some existing programs in 1972.) False for isOdd(36028797018963970) is also correct, and if you expected to send in a different number the bug is in the "+1" not the isOdd.
    - 18d ago
- bigstrat2003 18d ago
  IsOdd and IsEven never made sense. They were a badge of shame that said "I have no idea how to program".
austin-cheney 18d ago
Everything that touches JavaScript in the corporate world feels broken. Look at any full stack job post. It’s a mess of tech stack nonsense on the backend for people who are terrified of JavaScript and a layering of framework madness on the frontend for people who are still terrified of JavaScript. So it should be no surprise to see packages like those in common use when people aren’t really writing, or even reading, the real code anyways. That is just the coding aspect of it. There are many additional challenges to working with a bunch of cowards whose primary job is to pretend to be something they clearly aren’t.
dahart 18d ago
There’s not much evidence these are being used, only that they are dependencies for something else; that’s why the download numbers are so high. I wouldn’t say it’s broken, I’d say there are tradeoffs, and devs have known this and discussed it since the start of npm or any package manager. You automatically get some bloat when you use other people’s software. That’s the downside. The upside is you don’t have to write the code yourself and you can create things more quickly by not solving problems that others have already solved. It’s worth noting that AI has some of the same tradeoffs. The quality of what you get is still proportional to your prompting & reviewing effort, and spending low amounts of effort often results in similar amount of bloat.
shevy-java 18d ago
PHP devs are happy that npm exists. That way there is always a worse ecosystem down below.

There’s a bit more nuance as to why. It’s not fair to say that the average JS dev is reaching for a package like is-odd/is-even. Years ago when npm was just getting started there was a lot of experimentation and land grabbing for packages. A few “prolific” developers were pushing these tiny utilities and then using them in their own projects which ended up being required as deps in other projects and then snowballed into is-odd being included in webpack at some point (I think I have that timeline roughly correct). It’s still a crappy problem for sure but it’s not fair to paint most JS devs with a brush so broad.

junon 18d ago

I feel like I have to remind people of this quite often, but the history is such that npm was lightweight at one point, bundling wasn't a thing, and while `isodd`/`iseven` are of course silly, things like `isarray` were not functions that existed back then (we didn't have Array.isArray). `typeof [] === 'object'` in JS, so e.g. my package `is-arrayish` checked for a similar structure to an array (whereas Id guess `isarray` checked for the prototype). `isarray` failed for the `arguments` keyword, which was needed for variadics before argument spreads were added to the language I believe in ES5. So of course they don't make sense now. But they were created for a reason. Before even Markov chains were a fad - let alone LLMs - we were trying to be as efficient as possible and maximize code reuse I stead of writing the same helper functions over and over again. That's what you're seeing.

b112 18d ago
[flagged]
- junon 18d ago
  I think a lot of things end up that way, just at different timescales. Best we can do is learn from them and start again, IMO - however that looks.
- toyg 18d ago
  "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions". Still true, probably thousands of years after the sentence was coined.
zarzavat 18d ago
Yes and the critical issue was tree shaking. Nowadays we have tree shaking so it doesn't matter as much but in the past people preferred small single function packages because they had less impact on the download size.
ChiperSoft 18d ago
Additional Context: for about two years functional programming was REALLY popular in the Node community. It was a fad to chain tons of tiny functions together, and thus lots of people wrote tons of tiny functions. This is why lodash/fp exists.
wat10000 18d ago
I don’t think it ever made sense. Code reuse improves efficiency when the code can be shared in memory, or when it needs to be updated and you only have to change it in one place. JS packages don’t give you sharing beyond what you’d get from copying the code. And these little things don’t need to be updated, and in fact you probably don’t want them to be. It’s a case of doing something without understanding why it’s done. Packages are good, code sharing is good, so use it for everything. But it misses why they’re good.
- junon 18d ago
  This is all very easy to say in hindsight. It's missing the context of having been there, I think. Things were just different. Also, way more fun.
  - wat10000 18d ago
    I was definitely saying it at the time. But I wasn't embedded in the ecosystem, it was very much "those JavaScript guys are nuts, why would they do this?"
IncreasePosts 18d ago
You want to implement your own is-odd in your code - simple, right? isOdd = (x) => x % 2 == 1 Ut oh, your code is broken for negative numbers now since % isn't a true modulo operator... Fine then, isOdd = (x) => x % 2 != 0 Ut oh, your code is broken because isOdd("hi") returns true now... Fine then, isOdd = (x) => if(!isNumber(x)) throw... else return x%2 != 0 Ut oh, your code is now broken because isOdd(2^55+1) returns true now...
- rtkwe 18d ago
  Ut oh? I've never seen that, is it variant on uh oh or something else?
  - IncreasePosts 18d ago
    It's something I'm fighting for in my own little way. Everyone does a glottal stop between the "uh" and "oh", so I'm trying to align the spelling Unlike the guy on him who writes all years with 5 digits like 02026, I have good reasons for my idiosyncracies.
    - luplex 18d ago
      Hm, I would not spell it with a "t" then, but maybe with an apostrophe instead. "Uh'oh" is more readable in my opinion and won't be mispronou in ced
- Dylan16807 18d ago
  > Ut oh, your code is now broken because isOdd(2^55+1) returns true now... I think you messed up this example. Whether I literally use "2^55" with XOR or replace it with "2*55", that version of isOdd returns false. False for isOdd(58) is obviously correct. (Also thanks C for permanently screwing up the precedence of bitwise operations because you didn't want to break some existing programs in 1972.) False for isOdd(36028797018963970) is also correct, and if you expected to send in a different number the bug is in the "+1" not the isOdd.
  - 18d ago
bigstrat2003 18d ago
IsOdd and IsEven never made sense. They were a badge of shame that said "I have no idea how to program".

austin-cheney 18d ago

Everything that touches JavaScript in the corporate world feels broken. Look at any full stack job post. It’s a mess of tech stack nonsense on the backend for people who are terrified of JavaScript and a layering of framework madness on the frontend for people who are still terrified of JavaScript. So it should be no surprise to see packages like those in common use when people aren’t really writing, or even reading, the real code anyways. That is just the coding aspect of it. There are many additional challenges to working with a bunch of cowards whose primary job is to pretend to be something they clearly aren’t.

dahart 18d ago

There’s not much evidence these are being used, only that they are dependencies for something else; that’s why the download numbers are so high. I wouldn’t say it’s broken, I’d say there are tradeoffs, and devs have known this and discussed it since the start of npm or any package manager. You automatically get some bloat when you use other people’s software. That’s the downside. The upside is you don’t have to write the code yourself and you can create things more quickly by not solving problems that others have already solved. It’s worth noting that AI has some of the same tradeoffs. The quality of what you get is still proportional to your prompting & reviewing effort, and spending low amounts of effort often results in similar amount of bloat.

shevy-java 18d ago

PHP devs are happy that npm exists. That way there is always a worse ecosystem down below.