
Which of the 635000 NPM modules do I choose? - ccleary00
https://www.coreycleary.me/which-of-the-635000-npm-modules-do-i-choose/
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dangoljames
FIRST QUESTIONS 1\. DOES IT DO WHAT I NEED TO DO, AS ELEGANTLY AS I DO IT? 2\.
IS IT WELL DOCUMENTED? 3\. IS IT SIMPLE ENOUGH THAT I CAN PERFORM A SECURITY
AUDIT ON IT?

SECOND QUESTIONS 1\. IS IT SUPPORTED, AND IF NOT IS IT SIMPLE ENOUGH FOR ME TO
SUPPORT? 2\. IS IT PRESENTED AS PRODUCTION/GA CODE?

You won't need to bother about answering the second set affirmatively if you
can't do so with the first. To make a good clean decision, the answers to all
the forgoing should be in the affirmative.

If you ignore the attractive module names and apply this simple hueristic
faithfully, you'll find that the pool of potential production modules is not
only reduced dramatically but that in some application areas the selection
will actually become quite sparse.

You might say that my hueristic is incomplete, and you might be right, so feel
free to add a few conditions of your own.

Note that while we're all different and have different requirements, you
should still direct your efforts toward keeping the hueristic as simple and
concise as possible.

~~~
ccleary00
This is definitely a very useful heuristic and one I follow. I might put "Is
it supported?" in the first questions group though, especially if the project
is for work and you need to be able to get support/troubleshooting questions
answered quickly, as opposed to a "just for fun" side project where deadlines
are less prevalent.

"Keeping the heuristic as simple and concise as possible" -> this is really
the crux of it. In this post I listed out pre-researched modules and use cases
for them, but still basically a heuristic nonetheless.

