Hot take: My 8-year-old node_modules folder was weirder than any bookmark collection

I was cleaning out an old laptop last week and stumbled across a node_modules folder from a project I worked on in 2016. It had over 1,200 packages in it. I opened it up out of curiosity and found a folder called "left-pad" that was just a single text file. Also found a package called "is-thirteen" that checks if a number equals 13. Another one called "cowsay" that draws ASCII cows saying whatever you type. Who actually saves this stuff to their browser bookmarks instead? I feel like these package names are more bizarre than any bookmark I've ever saved. Has anyone else found weird old code libraries that made you question your past self?

2 comments

2 Comments

hernandez.jordan13d ago

And the thing is, those packages probably still work fine today even if nobody's touched them in years. Like, "left-pad" is just a basic function but people built whole apps on top of it.

eric_carr12d agoTop Commenter

But is relying on code nobody understands actually sustainable long term?