[cxr]

You don't need to put it on the Web to be able to leverage the World Wide Wruntime.

Epiq looks to be written in TypeScript and distributed as JS via NPM. You know what excels at executing JS? The browser.

If you want to actually address the usability problems—then create a CONTRIBUTING.html—linked from the README, that users are instructed to double-click to open (i.e. launch in the browser on any sanely configured system). From there, they can/should be able to load the project either by pointing to it with a filepicker-based workflow that's the same as VSCode's "Open Folder…" workflow, or by dragging and dropping the source tree into the browser window. If you do it right, then this should immediately present them with a browser-based UI for poring over and interacting with all the Epiq data in the repo—down to the Git commands to execute to integrate changes into the Epiq "database".

It's beyond baffling that so many programmers who are nominally JS developers thumb their noses at writing standards-compliant code and instead insist on coding directly against Node's proprietary APIs.

[locknitpicker]

> It's beyond baffling that so many programmers who are nominally JS developers thumb their noses at writing standards-compliant code and instead insist on coding directly against Node's proprietary APIs.

You're talking about node.js projects running on node.js, and you're complaining that it consumes node.js APIs. Strange.

[cxr]

There is no argument or insight in your comment. It's physically possible to type in code that makes direct use of non-standard APIs that work in NodeJS but not the browser. Pointing out that this is so and that there are people who do it is not the same as engaging with the subject of whether they ought not to—which was the point of the remarks you responded to. Previously:

> You're offering a retort to someone who is communicating their position that you ought not do something, where the retort consists of nothing more than explaining that people are doing it. Yes, clearly. But what the person you're responding to is arguing is that you ought not do it.¶ Consider[…]:

> Person A: Here's little advice: don't take up smoking. Smoking is bad for you.

> Person B: Yet people smoke

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38712699>

[mentalgear]

Indeed, I would use this in a browser (sandboxed) but in these times of exponential supply chain attacks, I'm not `npm install` anything outside a VM, and definitely not globally.

The Browser with its sandbox hardened for the internet is the way to go for any future personal/dx tools that were previously node only.

[hiccuphippo]

How can the browser execute git commands from opening a local html file? Maybe if you give the file a different extension and configure an application to run a webserver and open the default browser when the file is double-clicked?

[cxr]

> How can the browser execute git commands from opening a local html file?

It can't. The CONTRIBUTING.html shell would spit out a file and tell the user what Git commands need to be run—just like project READMEs (or landing pages like jekyllrb.com) show which commands will install the tool.