[alexpopescu]

Maybe these other systems are more fluid, but their are also a lot weaker in what their platform gives them. What I mean by this is that the Java world never needed the extra rvm, virtualenv, etc.

The complexity of dependency management doesn't come from declaring dependencies, but from managing conflicts over time and being able to create isolated environment.

Even if many call it the "jar nightmare", I don't know other systems that offer better isolation.

[doktrin]

I think you've misunderstood the point I was making, which makes sense in context of the video in the OP. I'm not arguing NPM > Maven. I'm arguing NPM is conceptually simpler and easier for a newcomer to use than Maven.

Namely, the speaker made reference to "weaker" DB technologies being used due simply to a frictionless barrier to entry. Mongo was cited as one example. The use of MySQL over Postgres was another. This is basically taken verbatim from the presentation in the video.

This isn't about which systems are "better" or "worse", but which are simpler to get up and running with. Mongo is super duper simple to install and configure. So is NPM. Managing complexity is a real and valid concern, but also not what we're talking about here.

[alexpopescu]

What I wanted to suggest is that: at the tool level npm, gem, pip are simpler to get started. But I don't think that's the case at the env level where you'll need more tools.

So while I've used some wrong words in my comment, I was still (trying at least) referring to simplicity vs complexity.

PS: I've never been very fond of other complexities introduced by the maven approach, but that's a different (and probably longer) story.