
NPM packages with most dependencies - supermdguy
https://gist.github.com/anvaka/8e8fa57c7ee1350e3491#file-02-with-most-dependencies-md
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drinchev
No idea why this list is on the first page of HN, but it looks like ( at least
the 10 that I clicked around ) are very spammy, not at all popular, packages
that I doubt have any use.

Probably the attention to this article is the good old debate about npm and
the huge dependencies that a package can have. Which is not always a bad
thing. Actually I wrote an article [1] about it.

1 : [http://www.drinchev.com/blog/increase-your-
dependencies/](http://www.drinchev.com/blog/increase-your-dependencies/)

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schneidmaster
I don't think there's much meaningful information to glean from this list. The
package at the top is literally just a package.json that installs all the
packages published by one particularly prolific npm author, it doesn't have
any serious purpose. Many of the other high-ranking packages simply have put
their devDependencies in their dependencies, resulting in a bunch of babel
plugins and the like (a mistake to be sure, but not indicative of anything in
particular about the state of npm package usage).

~~~
Scarbutt
_he package at the top is literally just a package.json that installs all the
packages published by one particularly prolific npm author_

In case you don't know, lots of those packages are one liners.

ex: [https://github.com/sindresorhus/array-
uniq/blob/master/index...](https://github.com/sindresorhus/array-
uniq/blob/master/index.js)

~~~
minitech
There’s history behind those one-liners:
[https://github.com/sindresorhus/array-
uniq/commit/fb96562015...](https://github.com/sindresorhus/array-
uniq/commit/fb965620157dd4dae2b5d0a3ba6dd19bbd2caf52#diff-168726dbe96b3ce427e7fedce31bb0bc)

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tw1010
Are we going to go around dependency-shaming packages now?

~~~
andrewmcwatters
If you, at first thought, believed this to be about shame, it says something
about the JavaScript ecosystem.

~~~
SquareWheel
For what other reason would it be posted?

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lev99
Having smaller packages each with many dependencies is a common node design
pattern. I think this started because it doesn't have a lot of framework code
to relay on, so simpler functions became packages.

It has advantages and disadvantages. People concerned about production
uptime/deployment should keep copies of all dependencies on their network, and
run npm against their network repo.

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partycoder
What I've learned from this is that npm itself has a lot of dependencies, and
that is bad. It means any of those 500+ packages can take over npm itself for
malicious purposes.

Other than that, there's not much to see. I would like this list being
filtered by usage (e.g: installs/downloads). Some packages seem to be there
for personal use.

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andreyf
There are immediate dependencies? Seems "depended on" should include sub-deps,
as well.

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imtringued
The top 50 all had less than 100 downloads this month. Not very interesting.

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alsadi
Hall of fame and hall of shame.

Don't force it. Use larger hammer.

Don't panic just throw more dependencies

~~~
alsadi
[http://turnoff.us/geek/my-adorable-useless-code/](http://turnoff.us/geek/my-
adorable-useless-code/)

