Webdev since 1998 here. Tabling the python vs JS/etc to comment on npm per se. PNPM is better than npm in every way. Strongest possible recommendation to use it instead of npm; it's faster, more efficient, safer, and more deterministic. See https://pnpm.io/motivation
I've gone all-in on Bun for many of the same reasons. Blazingly fast installs too.
https://bun.sh/
I think at this point everyone on hacker news with even a passing interest in JS has heard of bun, it's promoted relentlessly
I avoided JS for the longest time because i wanted nothing to with node or npm. With bun, i'm finally enjoying javascript.
I'm still meeting devs who haven't heard of it and get their minds blown when they replace npm in their projects. Every day is a chance to meet one of the lucky 10000: https://xkcd.com/1053/
Bun still segfaults way too often for my comfort but I’m crossing my fingers waiting for it to mature. It is definitely nice to have an alternative runtime to Node.
Did you experience any compatibility problems with Bun?
Deno is pretty sweet too... shell scripts that don't need a package.json or a node_modules directory for dependencies.
Yeah, Deno 2 is pretty compelling.
I find pnpm annoying to type, that's why I don't use it
IME after years of using pnpm exclusively having to type `pnpm install` instead of `npm install` is easily the single biggest drawback of replacing `npm` with `pnpm`, so yes.
FWIW I use zsh with auto-auto-completion / auto-completion-as-you-type, so just hitting `p` on an empty command line will remember the most recent command starting with `p` (which was likely `pnpm`), and you can refine with further keystrokes and accept longer prefixes (like I always do that with `git add` to choose between typical ways to complete that statement). IMO people who don't use auto-completion are either people who have a magical ability to hammer text into their keyboards with the speed of light, or people who don't know about anything hence don't know about auto-completion, or terminally obsessive types who believe that only hand-crafting each line is worth while.
I don't know which type of person you are but since typing `pnpm` instead of `npm` bothers you to the degree you refuse to use `pnpm`, I assume you must be of the second type. Did you know you can alias commands? Did you know that no matter your shell it's straightforward to write shell scripts that do nothing but replace obnoxious command invocations with shorter ones? If you're a type 3 person then of course god forbid, no true hacker worth their salt will want to spoil the purity of their artisanal command line incantations with unnatural ersatz-commands, got it.
Command alias? Even Windows can do them these days.
alias it to “p”