[ravenstine]

Why would you need a full JS runtime just to analyze what URLs are being imported? You don't even need a runtime for that. All that's necessary is to parse the AST, and in that case you don't even need an AST parser with full language support. It might not be as trivial for other language communities as writing a JSON parser, but it's not insurmountable or an unreasonable burden.

Honestly, I think the argument that one language community should lessen itself for the sake of another really bites. Using one language to analyze the dependencies of another really isn't a garden variety task. In the off chance someone really doesn't want to use JavaScript as their primary language for that task, what's so bad about calling an external runtime or parser from their language of choice?

I'm not saying I'm against import maps, because I think it's absolutely reasonable to want the features it provides, but I'm not being sold on any argument that they're necessary for almost anything. There's not a type of application I can think of that can't be written without anything an import map does.

[throwanem]

I think your claim, that the Deno community is in some way "lessen[ing] itself" with this change, requires more explication than you've given it, not least because it's far from clear that providing a relatively straightforward onramp for existing projects and teams from Node to Deno will have any such effect.