Link tags: npm

How do build tools break backwards compatibility? | Go Make Things

If you have a project that uses just plain HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can just open up the files and start working on them at any time. A project from 20 years ago will still work just fine, and can be easily modified.

Projects that use build tools? Well… to work with them, you need your build tools to actually build. And that’s not always guaranteed.

Also, it me:

One of my least favorite things as a developer is wanting to do a quick patch fix on an older project—I’m talking a simple one-line of CSS kind of fix—but first having to spend 30 minutes patching my build tools to get them running again.

Today’s Javascript, from an outsider’s perspective | Lea Verou

This is a damning and all-too typical example of what it’s like for someone to trying to get to grips with the current state of the JavaScript ecosystem:

Note that John is a computer scientist that knows a fair bit about the Web: He had Node & npm installed, he knew what MIME types are, he could start a localhost when needed. What hope do actual novices have?

I think it’s even worse than that. Not only are potential new devs being put off ever getting started, I know plenty of devs with experience who have pushed out by the overwhelming and needless complexity of the modern web’s toolchain. It’s like a constant gaslighting where any expression of unease is summarily dismissed as being the whinings of “the old guard” who just won’t get with the programme.

John gives up. Concludes never to touch Node, npm, or ES6 modules with a barge pole.

The End.

(Just watch as Lea’s post gets written off as an edge case.)

Don’t build that app! – Luke Jackson - YouTube

This is a fascinating look at how you can get the benefits of React and npm without using React and npm.

Here’s an accompanying article on the same topic.

CSS { In Real Life } | Building a dependency-free site in 2019

I think we’re often guilty of assuming that because our tools are great solutions for some things, they’re automatically the solution for everything.

I finally made sense of front end build tools. You can, too.

I still find the landscape of build tools completely overwhelming, but I found this distinction to be a useful way of categorising the different kinds of build tools:

Build tools do two things:

1. Install things
2. Do things

So bower, npm and yarn install things, whereas grunt, gulp, and webpack do things.

I think.

I’m harvesting credit card numbers and passwords from your site. Here’s how.

This is a “what if?” scenario, but it’s all too plausible.

For site owners, the (partial) solution is to have a strong Content Security Policy.

For users, the solution is to disable JavaScript.

(In the wake of Spectre and Meltdown, this is now a perfectly legitimate action for security-conscious web users to take; I hope your site can support that.)

Using NPM as a Build Tool | gablaxian.com

For a small to medium sized project, this sounds like a sensible way to approach build tasks. It feels nice and close to the metal.

Modern JavaScript for Ancient Web Developers

Speaking as an ancient web developer myself, this account by Gina of her journey into Node.js is really insightful. But I can’t help but get exhausted just contemplating the yak-shaving involved in the tooling set-up:

The sheer number of tools and plugins and packages and dependencies and editor setup and build configurations required to do it “the right way” is enough to stall you before you even get started.

NPM & left-pad: Have We Forgotten How To Program? | Haney Codes .NET

Not to sound all “Get off my lawn, kids!” but I think there might be something to this. When you’re requiring hundreds of dependencies to do little tasks that you should be able to code yourself, something’s not right.

But, for the love of all that is programming, write your own bloody basic programming functions. Taking on dependencies for these one-liners is just nuts.

That said, you don’t want reinvent hundreds of wheels either (as most of the comments point out). There’s a balance to be had.

Thomas Fuchs proposes a middle ground for JavaScript.