Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> Micro-libraries are really good actually, they're highly modular, self-contained code

Well I think that is the point, they're not self-contained. You are adding mystery stuff and who knows how deep the chain of dependencies go. See the left-pad fiasco that broke so much stuff, because the chain of transitive dependencies ran deep and wide.

NPM is a dumpster fire in this regard. I try to avoid it - is there a flag you can set to say "no downstream dependencies" or something when you add a dependency? At least that way you can be sure things really are self-contained.



There is a "no downstream dependencies" option; it's called writing/auditing everything yourself. Everything else -- be it libraries, monolithic SaaS platforms, a coworker's PR, etc. -- is a trade off between your time and your trust. Past that, we're all just playing musical chairs with where to place that trust. There's no right answer.


The article doesn't claim to have an answer for everything. The article argues that tiny i.e. micro libraries are a almost always a bad tradeoff.


Yeah there's a way to do that, yarn and pnpm can flatten the dependency tree. You can add the fork directly too:

yarn add <path/to/your/forked/micro-library.git>

pnpm add <path/to/your/forked/micro-library.git>


I remember adding a random date picker that pulled in a copy of React with it to a non-React project. NPM is a dumpster fire at a nuclear facility.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: