Node's nested node_modules approach is basically incompatible with Windows

The Win32API was initially designed to make it very easy to port from Win16API in the early 1990s. Microsoft neglected to improve the Win32API starting with the dotNet adventures. Instead of an improved Win64API we have the identical API for 32 and 64 bit (and WinRT API). The shell still doesn't support UNC path. The Windows NT series operating system would support different subsystems other than Win32.

Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces on MSDN explains the details: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa36...

Totally. This is actually a trivially solvable problem (I've been working on a meta package manager compatible with npm, bower and component).

The strategy I took with node_modules/, components/ and bower_modules/ was to just follow whatever folder structure it found as far as necessary and look for manifest files (package.json, bower.json and component.json) and register modules at the path of wherever one of those three file types is found. This approach allows any folder organization whatsoever. This information was then saved to a key-value store and the store is only updated when the mtime of the folder changes. This makes startup relatively fast since folders are only re-indexed if something has genuinely changed.

Writing an algorithm that is dependent on the folder structure to me is a fundamentally bad idea most of the time, especially when you have a manifest file that better identifies a module. Additionally, for modules with semver ranges or installed from unusual locations (i.e. URIs: git:// git+ssh://, https://, etc.), you can write an additional metadata file with install information and version locking information (like gemfile.lock)

If people don't rely on the file system organization as an API, npm and node's require() algorithm can trivially reorganize or even use different folder organization schemes on different operating systems if there were a good reason to do so.

I am somewhat surprised at this topic. Of all the the issues Node.js has on windows, this seems like a fairly minor one. In my eyes, the biggest issue is simply this:

A lot of module writers don't care about Windows.

A big part of the node ecosystem is that there is a module for practically anything. While node core has great support for windows, and also helps aid developers in writing code that is windows compatible, from what I have seen, its not often followed.

Any number of simple things break modules on windows, using a '/' as a path separator instead of path.join, native modules, bash or shell scripts used in pre- or post-install scripts and probably a hundred other small ways to screw it up. Even trying to make your own module Windows compatible is often thwarted by a dependency that doesn't. Like Java's promise of "Write once, run anywhere", its a great idea, but hasn't completely panned out.

I really hope that as the node community matures, there can be more of a focus on making sure things work on Windows. Node is a great platform partially because of all those modules and getting them all working will make writing cross platform apps and services a heck of a lot easier.

Look, I totally get where you're coming from. I haven't used Windows (other than the modern.ie virtual machines for IE testing) in over 7 years now...

But a lot of devs use windows. Convincing them to switch has always been painful, and I stopped when I took a look at myself and asked why I cared so much (there are legitimate answers to that question, but my answers were not).

Where I work we use all three OS's. I personally use OS X, coupled with Linux VM's (where all my projects actually run). But the developers running Windows are just as productive as I am (if not more so, one die-hard Windows user is twice the developer I am, which is why he's a tech lead here). Yeah sometimes they have to deal with small annoyances when using *nix software on Windows which a lot of FOSS dev tools are, but hey, so do I on OS X, and I have on Debian as well.

Anyway, that's a long winded way of saying: that's just like, your opinion, man.