alt Hacker NewsWould be nice if node packages could be packed up in ZIP files so to avoid the security/metadata tax for small file access on Windows.
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There are alternative package managers like Yarn that use zip files as a way to store each Node package.[0]
When npm decided to have per-project node_modules (rather than shared like ruby and others) and human readable configs and library files I think the goal was to be a developer friendly and highly configurable, which it is. And package.json became a lot more than that as a result, it’s been a great system IMO.
Combined with a hackable IDE like Atom (Pulsar) made with the same tech it’s a pretty great dev exp for web devs
I remember when Firefox started putting everything into jars for similar reasons.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161003115800/https://blog.mozi...
Would accessing deps directly from a zip really be faster? I'd be a little surprised but not terribly, given that it's readonly on an fs designed for RW. If not, maybe just tar?
It’s insane to me that node works how it does. Zip files make so much more sense, I really liked that about Yarn.
You can always use virtualized Linux to avoid the NTFS penalty (WSL2, VS Code dev containers, etc.)
Would it work to run a bundler over your code, so all (static) imports are inlined and tree shaken?
The number of files in the node modules folder is crazy, any amount of organization that can tame that chaos is welcomed.