Beta Stories — Episode 09

The promise of the modern package ecosystem was a kind one: you do not have to write everything yourself. Stand on the shoulders of giants. Reuse, do not reinvent. Anyone maintains it.

The reality, measured this morning on a fresh laptop, is the avalanche this episode is named for.

The Reality, in Two Numbers

npm install express on a clean directory pulls Express 5.2.1, declares 28 direct dependencies, resolves a total of 65 packages across the dependency tree, and produces a node_modules of 3.6 MB. That is the smaller end of the modern web.

npx create-next-app@latest with the recommended defaults (TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, ESLint, App Router) creates a project whose package.json declares 11 packages, resolves a transitive tree of 644 packages, and writes a node_modules of 463 MB. The application, at this stage, renders a single page that says "Welcome to Next.js".

Six hundred and forty-four pieces of someone else's work to render eighteen characters of text.…