[Discuss] node.js and npm on Debian?

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

[Warning, philosophical tangent.]

The thing that strikes me is that it feels like we are doing something 
fundamentally wrong if a sensible way to write "Hello, World!" (or 
"Hello, I'm a GUI widget!") could possibly be: "Fire up a Linux VM.". 
(Or a Docker container...)

I'm not saying the answers in this thread are wrong (I appreciate them, 
I have learned a lot, and I think I even have npm installed--though an 
unrelated regression stalled my node.js playing today). I am saying the 
so-called "full stack" that is trendy these days smells bad and feels 
wrong headed.

The binary for a modern-day IRC-type program (Slack) is over 80MB. Sure, 
the original IRC didn't have pictures. But 80MB!? I have an internet 
radio program (Tunein Radio) that has an install of 65MB.

The Linux kernel--arguably festooned with too many features--is only a 
4MB binary on my notebook. And can be trimmed down to about half that 
(last I looked) yet still do powerful stuff. It is crazy that Slack is 
twenty-times the size of the big version of the kernel.

You might ask: "What's the harm? Storage is cheap!"

I'm not sure, but it feels like this is an infinite supply of security 
vulnerabilities, plus a lot of regular feature bugs and much of the 
general "computerized things don't work very well".

-kb