So I imagine that if you ship an app on Linux you check in the source of every system library and utility it depends on, right? Anything less is little more than a hack to escape the harsh and knowing gaze of your version control system.
> I imagine that if you ship an app on Linux you check in the source of every system library and utility it depends on, right?
Dumb false equivalence, since that ("every system library and utility it depends on") is not the argument of the side you're trying to appear to offer a response to. Please refer to the HN guidelines.
A less dishonest retort would be to ask if one should check in the dependencies that are analogous to what ends up in node_modules, and the response would be, "welp, that's exactly how many app developers have been known to approach things, so 'yes'."
Despite the sanctimony, I'm sure there's at least a slim chance of you understanding my point: the distinction between "what ends up in node_modules" and any other application dependency is arbitrary and purely conventional. There are legitimate technical reasons to check dependencies into source control, but neither the reasons cited in the article nor any pompous ascriptions of moral judgment to software tools are among them.
As a point of fact, the sanctimony of referring to something as a "hacky workaround" began here, where _you_ were the one to (unironically) introduce the phrase: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528285> Pointing out the logical inconsistency of a strong claim is not provocation, no matter how much you feel like you are the one who is being attacked.
I don't recognize your claim that the distinction is arbitrary. Is the NPM world's distinction between package.json's "dependencies" vs "devDependencies" arbitrary? (Answer: no.)
