Trex: A package manager for Deno | Hacker News Reader

Trex: A package manager for Deno

github.com

36 pointsbuttercubz24 comments

Why write the executable with an upper-first letter? Looks quite silly and not professional imo.

Makes it feel like windows or something - ick

it's really a problem that the first letter is upper?

Not really for people who have their shells configured to auto-(de)capitalize the name of a command or binary, but for those that don't, it's a departure from what's normal. It's easily solved through an alias or similar, but still: why introduce the impedance?

Agreed. I'm a heavy CLI user and I can't remember a single one being upper-case.

So, to me, this just looks to wrap the import map functionality with a nicer cli.

For the same number of times as in days I'm torn on wether this is good.

On one hand, it's a bridge for node people and adds some nice comfort tooling.

On the other, it means you don't get to really understand how packages and bundling are supposed to work.

I may just end up writing a post on this tonight.

It also reintroduces one of the main problems of node back into deno. https://youtu.be/M3BM9TB-8yA?t=581

not really since it is around imports map something native to deno, the purpose is to make it something familiar like npm

npm should not be a model to be imitated. npm modules make security audits impossible.

Trex currently uses deno.land/std, deno.land/x, nest.land and any repository. nest.land provides a blockchain-based service, we just take the way npm is used for our CLI. Trex doesn't try to look for the same npm issues, we just take the import maps and create a tool to manipulate them in a friendly way for those who already know the nodejs ecosystem

In my opinion, Trex is actually working against what npm introduced to Node. Though I don't exactly know what "main problem" you're referring to, I can say that:

1) Trex is supporting multiple module registries, not just one. (Thus not necessarily centralized) 2) Trex is not associated with one entity in particular. This means that they have no company dedicated to hosting modules in house (another reason that they aren't centralized) 3) Node's package.json included many other things than just imports. Using Trex is completely optional, and if you do use it, an import map does not hinder one's development workflow. In my opinion, it makes dependencies easier to manage.

Was not one of the main motivations for deno to not use a package manager?

I believe so. I always wondered why `go mod` existed until we had dependencies break fairly frequently from a certain domain and were forced to vend the dependency.

Indeed, this is a massive issue with any url based imports. Because Trex supports nest.land, this is not an issue. nest.land is actually a first-of-its-kind blockchain module registry and CDN. Because we use the blockchain for storing modules, they can never be deleted or altered in any way. This also means that they are permanently and indefinitely resolvable from the web. Because of this, module vendoring is no longer an issue!

what trex does is, downloads and caches the modules and stores them within the name aliases provided by the import map

I don't understand the point of this. The Deno runtime is its dependency manager, so having an external one is redundant.

Don't make me type shift on the command line. It makes my pinky finger hurt after a long day.

How often are you installing packages?

I do it a ton. I don't write production code much anymore; it tends to be quick scripts or little one-off apps. So I probably type `npm i ...` a few times a day.

Plus things like `npm install` on pull requests, etc.

What is Trex?

is a Package management for deno similar to npm but maintaining the deno philosophy. packages are cached and only one import_map.json file is generated.

I don't know how trademarking naming works, or if they would even care, but Trex is already a big Composite Decking manufacturer. They have trex.com.

That's not how trademarking works. They are in quite different industries, there should be little to no confusion that a package manager is going to ship a deck to you.

IANAL but from my little bit of research on trademarks it's not the same industry, so not likely a confusion... Don't think anyone would think a company that creates Deck and Software were the same. Kinda like they have Docker containers and Dockers pants.

Trex is not a company; Trex is a product under the crewdevio organization on GitHub.

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