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On internet success

What is it about the nature of The Internet that makes internet success seem so attainable?

Is it the open/egalitarian nature of the internet? Literally anyone can start an open source project, youtube channel, blog, store, whatever.

Is it the fact that, as developers, we know the inner workings of the tech behind the latest hotness? Theoretically we could build them ourselves, right?

Is it the humble and approach demeanor that internet-successful people need to maintain in order to become and grow their personal brands? Being able to tweet at (or email) someone with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers and getting a reply (sometimes in real time) is incredible.

A few years ago, I found out that a successful podcaster that I’d been following from her earliest days as a podcaster, actually has an agent helping her to land podcasting gigs. I really wonder how often comparable machinations are happening behind the scenes of internet success?

 

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The Problem with NPM

Whenever you run `npm install` it generates a local, project specific /node_modules/ directory with literally 10s of thousands of files and folders.

Why?! WHY?!

I understand that javascript is a simple scripting language, missing many features that are baked in to more traditional languages like PHP and friends.

I understand that many node modules are a work in progress, that are updated frequently.

I don’t understand the benefit off having these packages sitting inside each project directory.

I understand that disk space is cheap and it doesn’t really matter.

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