This (or something like it) is always the top thread. I wish this was something the frontend community cheered about, not lamented. Those 200MB of node modules are developers ad-hoc cobbling together an alternative to xcode and android studio, except entirely modular and where we have complete control. Serious application development for the open web is hamstrung by limitations and definitely in an awkward growth phase, but it's marching towards a possible future of competing with native mobile apps and the two companies to which they're entirely beholden. To me, 200MB of tooling is not a sign of cruft, but of steady and imperfect progress.
Edit: and for the record, xcode is a 13.8GB install
> The set of dependencies that Create-React-App uses includes:
> A compiler. a bundler/linker, an optimizing minifier, a linter, a development server with live reloading, and a test runner
All of those are isolated and scoped to that one project, and they are all build-time dependencies only. It's also important to understand that Javascript packages are effectively distributed as source, which affects the number of files on disk. (Granted, many NPM packages do include unnecessary files in the published artifacts, but Javascript itself is a major factor there.)
As you said, a full-blown IDE like XCode or Visual Studio is easily multiple gigs, and if you were to look at the actual file size on disk of any C++ compiler toolchain, that would be a minimum of dozens of MB - those are just usually preinstalled on Linux or Mac systems.
So, context is pretty important here. A couple hundred MB for a complete JS build toolchain is understandable. I don't think it's necessarily _good_, and I think it can be improved a lot (especially with upcoming tooling like NPM Tink and Yarn PnP), but it's not the catastrophe many make it out to be.
Here's an interesting observation from recent HN reactions to JS:
+ The hardcore server folks are hating JS these days, because it requires more than dropping a single script tag.
+ The full-stack people / JS beginners are hating JS with a passion, because they think it's unneeded complexity for
their deadline.
+ Advanced JS veterans totally like how the JS ecosystem is rapidly maturing & solving its problems in interesting ways.
And there's people like you (the latter), constantly explaining the former groups that JS isn't so bad.
I'll see if I can write a blog (or a book if it has to be) on each part of JS ecosystem that has changed with detailed explanations on why it is better.
I think this is all true, but one important factor is that there's currently an assumption that any serious project must necessarily use all this complexity, which makes your second point true - but not in a way that's the fault of javascript, but more the community around it.
If you're making a simple site, or even a fairly simple application, the typical modern Javascript toolchain is absolutely unneeded complexity. It's not even React - many developers will turn their nose up on anything that isn't using Redux / Typescript / GraphQL / whatever flavour of the week is popular, even on sites where Javascript itself is probably not that big a requirement. As an example, we're all talking on a site that has almost no Javascript and works perfectly well - but I have no doubt that if you hired a developer to build a site like this in 2018 it would absolutely use a typical complex setup.
That isn't Javascript's fault, really - no library demands that you use it for everything, and many like Redux make it a point to push users away from using them inappropriately. But the Javascript community is currently in a phase that's probably unhealthily pushed towards the new, shiny, more complex library, regardless of how well it suits the problem.
I have to agree with you. The shiny stuff syndrome is spreading like cancer in the front-end world.
The only way to set this right is: when you create something, don’t sell it as a one size fit for all solution. State the tradeoffs as loud and clear as possible. Guide the users on what point you necessarily need the library and point them to simpler alternatives when needed.
This is something I deeply respect about Dan Abramov. He did this with Redux. Now that he’s in React, I see a lot of this culture in React docs as well these days.
Bottomline: The responsibility is on the creators to stop spreading this shiny stuff syndrome.
I will say that as a current Redux maintainer, I _hate_ that I seem to have to spend more time cautioning people about when it's appropriate to use Redux, than I do actually promoting its use. :( I can't think of any other lib off the top of my head where the maintainers have had to do that.
That said, yeah, we've got a Redux FAQ entry that discusses when you should use Redux [0], and some other "caveat"-type sections scattered throughout the docs.
We're currently planning a revamp of the Redux docs structure and content [1], and we'll see if we can improve some of the messaging as part of that. Would appreciate any suggestions you can offer.
> many NPM packages do include unnecessary files in the published artifacts
This is the main reason node_modules grow so quickly. Many authors are careless on what files they include in their published packages.
The npm cli now makes the package files and size visible during publishing, but I guess we need some way to shame authors publishing big packages, maybe by including size info on the npm website and downranking them in searches.
In June of last year, I had to prepare an offline Visual Studio installer for an isolated environment - the install package (with all available options) weighed in at over 50gb...
Right, exactly. Now, that can be broken down into smaller chunks based on what toolset you're intending to work with (C#, C++, web, SQL, etc), and the sizes for each toolset vary, but clearly these toolsets take up a lot of space.
visual studio code and browser are about 50 mb each. That brings a complete web dev setup to maybe 300-400 mb. Oh and I can build desktop apps and mobile apps too with web tools, still never coming close to 10+gb.
Yeah, it is completely missing me how web application dependency libraries relate in any way to an IDE for building applications. I don't get this argument and it doesn't seem to me like it makes sense. Perhaps I'm wrong and there's a connection I'm not seeing. Can anyone clarify this?
The point is that build tools take up disk space, and need to be installed. IDEs like XCode and Visual Studio bring along large quantities of libraries, headers, and other aspects of a C++ / C# / Swift / $LANG build toolchain.
Front-end web dev now consists in large part of building highly interactive applications, not just static sites. That requires tooling. Therefore, it's not unreasonable to expect that the necessary tools will take up space, and there's plenty of prior precedent from other languages.
The lion's share of my node_modules are related to my development environment -- Webpack, Typescript, Babel, SASS, Jest, etc. A very small portion actually gets bundled into the dist.
Those 200MB of node modules are developers ad-hoc cobbling together an alternative to xcode and android studio, except entirely modular and where we have complete control.
You just made up a fictional scenario and used it as the evidence for your case.
Edit: and for the record, xcode is a 13.8GB install