Steps to reproduce:

  1. Start a Node project that uses at least five direct dependencies.
  2. Leave it alone for three months.
  3. Come back and try to install it.

Something in the dependency tree will yell at you that it is deprecated or discontinued. That thing will not be one of your direct dependencies.

NPM will tell you that you have at least one security vulnerability. At least one of the vulnerabilities will be impossible to trigger in your particular application. At least one of the vulnerabilities will not be able to be fixed by updating the versions of your dependencies.

(I am sure I exaggerate, but not by much!)

Why is it like this? How many hours per week does this running-to-stay-in-place cost the average Node project? How many hours per week of developer time is the minimum viable Node project actually supposed to have available?

  • @[email protected]
    86•11 months ago

    Because 99% of Node projects are web related, and if something’s vulnerable on the web it won’t take long to be abused

    • @[email protected]
      7•11 months ago

      Also a great disadvantage with JavaScript being the official scripting language of the web so it needs to work in every browser, but not every browser will implement it the same way. Syntax between the browser and servers also gets conflated.

      I’ve done frontend development in Java and it sucks major ass. The “advantage” of using one language for the whole project really ended up as a net negative. For any server-side project I’m totally fine using Java because for all it’s verbosity it’s secure, performant, and examples from 10 years ago aren’t useless.