Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hannob 890 days ago
The core of the problem is micro dependencies. It seems in the Javascript ecosystem, developers have no awareness of costs of complexity.

When you wonder whether to add a dependency, you should ask yourself: What are the upsides and downsides of adding this dependency. One downside is always that by adding a dependency, you add a potential security problem, a potential point of breakage, and more complexity.

There are situations where these are well justified. If your dependency is stable, from a trustworthy source, and if it is a functionality that you cannot quickly implement yourself. But if you include a dependency that is effectively one line of code, the question answers itself: The costs of adding a dependency is completely unreasonable. It your list of dependencies grows into the 100s, you're doing something wrong.