Comment by 1GZ0
3 months ago
> It's completely fair game to react to the provocation rather than the substance of the article itself.
Yeah, but its down right stupid to do so.
The title isn't even misleading or part of a Motte-and-bailey argument.
People just hear "Package Managers are Evil" and assume that the author means you shouldn't use third party dependencies. Which is NOT what's being argued.
But I guess you'd know that, if you read passed the title.
In the article, the author does say "I am not advocating to write things from scratch", while also describing third party dependencies as liabilities (e.g. security vulnerabilities), that people are too trusting of third party dependencies, that people overestimate the quality of third party dependencies.
I think you're splitting hairs if you're saying that these points from the article argue against package managers but don't argue against using third party dependencies.
I similarly think you're splitting hairs if to consider "package managers are useful?" and "third party dependencies are useful?" as distinct points.
Liability: "Something for which one is liable; an obligation, responsibility, or debt."
Third party dependencies absolutely are liabilities. You are liable to vet them, inspect their licenses and keep them updated while ensuring that they continue working with your existing code.
This is not something package managers help you do. Package managers like NPM make it trivial to skip these steps entirely.
What is being argued for, is a more thoughtful approach to handling third party dependencies. Or at the very least, the need for people to realise that there are costs associated with bringing third party dependencies into your codebase.
Its not splitting hairs at all. Its more of an presumption on the part of a large number of readers, that the 2 points argued conflate to "Package manager suck, because third party dependencies suck and you should write everything from scratch instead".
Sorry but I lack any respect for authors that use clickbaits. Call them put and move on seem the best approach.
Its not clickbait though.
You should try reading the article before passing judgement.
Its not like the article is called "5 facts that will make you hate package managers. Number 5 will shock you"
It was clickbait because the article, which I did read, did not support the contention that package managers are evil. Therefore "evil" seems to be used in a hyperbolic way to grab attention, which makes it clickbait, specifically ragebait.
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