You say you are creating a more performant NPM. Is it impossible to fix the current NPM? Why not submit fixes back to NPM? Why create a new project?
In answer, why not create a new project? NPM INC controls npm, hasn't contributed it to the node foundation (despite playing a pivotal role in creating said foundation), and hasn't been especially good at taking contributions recently.
A new project dodges all those existing problems, demonstrates alternate approaches are both feasible and compatible, and destroys the myth that npm is fundamental to node, rather than simply the first of many package management systems that take advantage of node's import semantics.
Also the way it wires up dependencies (using symlinks) has been called "non humane design" by npm... so I thought it would be easier to just start a new project... it's not a lot of code/logic needed there actually... :)
I made a quick comparison here: https://gist.github.com/alexanderGugel/a10ed5655d366875a280
Basically ied uses symlinks in order to resolve circular dependencies, while ied exploits the fact that require "falls back" in the directory structure.
> Basically ied uses symlinks in order to resolve circular dependencies, while npm exploits the fact that require "falls back" in the directory structure.