[greggman3]

There is one difference. I know npm keeps published versions. I don't know that random URL keeps versions. Caching locally doesn't help. I expect my code to work for others. Of course using any source is nice. node also allows this, just put a git URL as your dependency.

[afiori]

URLs to a registry keep published versions if the registry keeps published versions.

Your argument is that npm is more trustworthy than another random registry, this is likely true but also a matter of opinion.

[dmitriid]

> URLs to a registry keep published versions if the registry keeps published versions.

Yes. Have you've ever heard of running your own registry? It' quite easy to do and most companies do it prcisely because they want to a) keep published versions and b) prevent things like colors/fake.js

Literally no one who promotes Deno has yet shown how to do the same with Deno beyond "yeah, you check in all your node_modules dependencies into Git".