Valid criticisms, but the "standard" choices all work well. Nvm is the de facto standard for node version management, npm is a totally satisfactory package manager, node is the standard runtime that those other runtimes try to be compatible with, etc.
Will also note that in my years of js experience I've hardly ever run into module incompatibilities. It's definitely gnarly when it happens, but wouldn't consider this to be the same category of problem as the confusion of setting up python.
Hopefully uv can convince me that python's environment/dependency management can be easier than JavaScript's. Currently they both feel bad in their own way, and I likely prefer js out of familiarity.
> I've hardly ever run into module incompatibilities
I'm not totally sure what you're referring to, but I've definitely had a number of issues along the lines of:
- I have to use import, not require, because of some constraint of the project I'm working in
- the module I'm importing absolutely needs to be required, not imported
I really don't have any kind of understanding of what the fundamental issues are, just a very painful transition point from the pre-ESM world to post.
I was referring to cjs vs esm (require vs import, respectively). I suspect I was late enough to the game (and focused on browser js) such that I've mostly only used esm.
I will note that node has embraced esm, and nowadays it's frowned upon to only publish cjs packages so this problem is shrinking every day. Also cool is some of the newer runtimes support esm/cjs interop.
Will also note that in my years of js experience I've hardly ever run into module incompatibilities. It's definitely gnarly when it happens, but wouldn't consider this to be the same category of problem as the confusion of setting up python.
Hopefully uv can convince me that python's environment/dependency management can be easier than JavaScript's. Currently they both feel bad in their own way, and I likely prefer js out of familiarity.