Node.js (or more accurately, the entire Javascript ecosystem) changes, but the tropes don't.
https://medium.com/hackernoon/how-it-feels-to-learn-javascri... (beware the green background, I recommend reader mode.)
The tragedy of running an old Node project
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Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#12I've actually had a node project go bad in a mere 4 months. It must be a new record. That was about 4-5 years ago though. Hopefully the ecosystem as improved since then, but it was nearly impossible to get going. Some packages had been changed and the version number overwritten with incompatible packages, and the conflicts were plenty.
One of the things I'm intrigued by is that JS people, and the other couple of ecosystems where this is a big problem, go out to learn another language (as a good T-shaped developer does), and then start posting frantic questions to the new language's communities about how this popular library hasn't had a commit in six weeks, is it dead, oh my gosh wtf aaaaaaaaaaa. It's OK. Not every language ecosystem is so busted t…
> frantic questions to the new language's communities about how this popular library hasn't had a commit in six weeks
Lol, my perspective is almost the opposite. If it's got a lot of commits in the last six weeks, I need to look for something that's stable. Unless there's a good reason for so many commits; I feel like that many commits means it's in active development, which implies the requirements and interfaces aren't yet determined and who wants to rely on that?
Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#13You know, I ran into something similar recently with a static site engine (Zola). Was moving to a new host and figured I'd just copy and run the binary, only to have it fail due to linking OpenSSL. I had customized the internals years ago and stupidly never committed it anywhere, and attempting to build it fresh ran into issues with yanked crates. Since it's just a binary though, I wound up grabbing the OpenSSL from…
That is nothing..Try building your Android project after leaving it idle for a week. Or better yet, try building you react native project you left for 2 days.
Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#14The worst part isn't just that it's nearly impossible to run/update an outdated JS project, but that this process will repeat itself ad infinitum.
On the flip side, anything that uses vanilla JS without a build will most likely run just fine, probably till the end of human civilization.
Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#15Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the things I'm intrigued by is that JS people, and the other couple of ecosystems where this is a big problem, go out to learn another language (as a good T-shaped developer does), and then start posting frantic questions to the new language's communities about how this popular library hasn't had a commit in six weeks, is it dead, oh my gosh wtf aaaaaaaaaaa. It's OK. Not every language ecosystem is so busted t…
These JS developers would probably shiver at seeing many Common Lisp repos with a last commit like 12 years ago and still working like a charm.
Node is bad but the worst I have seen is Android
Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#17I always try to remember to put the node version in my package.json - but I do agree that the dependency chain on node-gyp has been a blight on node packages for awhile. Really wonder how that wart became such a critical tool used by so many packages.
Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the things I'm intrigued by is that JS people, and the other couple of ecosystems where this is a big problem, go out to learn another language (as a good T-shaped developer does), and then start posting frantic questions to the new language's communities about how this popular library hasn't had a commit in six weeks, is it dead, oh my gosh wtf aaaaaaaaaaa. It's OK. Not every language ecosystem is so busted t…
These JS developers would probably shiver at seeing many Common Lisp repos with a last commit like 12 years ago and still working like a charm.
I’m curious, how do you measure the pulse of a project that old? Do people still talk about it? Or that not even necessary — use it until it breaks and otherwise don’t think about it?
Re: The tragedy of running an old Node project
#19node-gyp was a mistake, building of native addons should have been an explicit separate step all along.