A one-line package broke `npm create-react-app`
The problems that beset the Javascript ecosystem today are the same problems that beset the Unix ecosystem, back in the 90s when there still was one of those. TC39 plays the role now that OSF did then, standardizing good ideas and seeing them rolled out. That&#x27;s why Promise is core now. But that process takes a long time and solutions from the &quot;rough consensus and running code&quot; period stick around, which is why instanceof Promise isn&#x27;t enough of a test for things whose provenance you don&#x27;t control.<p>Of course, such a situation can&#x27;t last forever. If the idea is good enough, eventually someone will come along and, as Linux did to Unix, kill the parent and hollow out its corpse for a puppet, leaving the vestiges of the former ecosystem to carve out whatever insignificant niche they can. Now the major locus of incompatibility in the &quot;Unix&quot; world is in the differences between various distributions, and what of that isn&#x27;t solved by distro packagers will be finally put to rest when systemd-packaged ships in 2024 amid a flurry of hot takes about the dangers of monoculture.<p>Bringing it back at last to the subject at hand, Deno appears to be trying to become the Linux of Javascript, through the innovative method of abandoning the concept of &quot;package&quot; entirely and just running code straight from wherever on the Internet it happens to live today. As a former-life devotee of Stack Overflow, I of course applaud this plan, and wish them all the luck they&#x27;re certainly going to need.<p>The impetus behind &quot;lol javascript trash amirite&quot; channer takes today is exactly that behind the UNIX-Haters Handbook of yore. I have a printed copy of that, and it&#x27;s still a fun occasional read. But those who enjoy &quot;javascript trash lol&quot; may do well to remember the Handbook authors&#x27; stated goal of burying worse-is-better Unix in favor of the even then senescent right-thing also-rans they favored, and to reflect on how well that played out for them.